Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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NOVEMBER 19-25, 2014 UCW 5 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET Serving Fayetteville Over 50 Years! 484-0261 1304 Morganton Rd. Mon-Sat: 6am-10pm Sun: 7am-2:30 pm Banquet rooms available up to 100 guests Book Your Banquet & Holiday Parties Early! Family & Business Groups Welcome! Contest&RequestLine: 910-764-1073 www.christian107.com KeepingtheMainThing...theMainThing. visitusonline FocusontheFamily 20Countdown Magazine Adventures in Odyssey We are on the cusp of what Americans refer to as the "holiday season." Halloween is the teaser leading up to that uniquely American commemoration, Thanksgiving. The season flows into Christmas, and onto the New Year 2015. There have been Christmas decorations for sale in local big-box stores since late August, and last week I heard an explanation on NPR of why the mega-sales day after Thanksgiving is called "Black Friday." Driving southeast last week, I saw snowflakes and wreaths along several Main Streets. Thankfully, there were not yet illuminated, but that is coming soon. We are clearly off and running, and I am both anticipating and getting anxious about the coming festivities and all the work it takes to make them not only delightful in the moment but building blocks of memories. I am also aware of how family holidays evolve over the years. The Dicksons were out of town for Halloween, so no little ghosts and goblins knocked on our darkened door. It would not have been much different had we been at home, though, as there are few little ones in our long-established neighborhood, now heavy on retirees and grandparents. This is a far cry from the days when the Precious Jewels and fleets of their contemporaries turned into princesses and pirates and brought home bags of candy that I snuck into the trash before bugs got into them. Thanksgiving has changed dramatically as well. For more than three decades, we made the Thanksgiving Day trek from Fayetteville to Chapel Hill to celebrate with cousins and friends and, over the years, others from many places including Austria, Belgium, Kenya and some I no longer remember. Such diversity prompted a young Precious Jewel to exclaim between bites of the feast that we were attending "Thanksgiving at the United Nations!" Next week we will celebrate the "third annual" Thanksgiving at one of North Carolina's loveliest beaches. Our location has changed, but the Chapel Hill cousins and the Dicksons continue to join forces in the planning, cooking and general execution of the day. Blessedly, relatives and friends continue to join us. One of the first Chapel Hill Thanksgivings saw me arrive with a babe in arms and diapers galore. Next week, those babes will be on the cooking staff, producing turkeys, vegetables, desserts and much needed organizational skills. Moving along in the family hierarchy is the next generation, including a precocious 9-year- old, a newly walking toddler and several in between. I am a long way from the days when I sat at my grandparents' table in Kinston where perfect food appeared and I ate it. Now I participate, and my culinary contributions next week will include Kentucky Derby pie and oyster dressing to complement my cousins' turkey. I am particularly looking forward to our neighbor's divine macaroni and cheese, a dish dripping with four decadent cheeses. In no time, Christmas will overtake us. We are expecting a quiet family Christmas this year, but it has not always been this way. As young children, the Precious Jewels, like many others, woke up before daylight to check on Santa's visit. Their parents dealt with the early- bird problem by decreeing that only parents could go downstairs before 7 a.m., but we still heard them all atwitter at the top of the stairs. For many years, the Dicksons hosted a family Christmas party that included everyone from grandparents and great aunts to the newest little ones and eventually friends and neighbors. It was a lively affair that for many years featured a hired Santa to bounce little ones on his knee and hear their fondest dreams. That tradition ended abruptly the year the rent-a- Santa announced that he wanted a 15-year-old blond girl cousin to sit on his lap instead of the shrieking 2-year-old. Laced throughout all these occasions over more than three decades are foods lovingly prepared by many people, work done together and the laughs and tears that accompany all family endeavors. There are photographs of some, but not all, of these occasions, but each of us who attend has our own pictures in our heads. My memories are different than those of the Precious Jewels, but most of those memories are dear. As the Dicksons roll into another holiday season with many of the same traditions but with circumstances made different by the passage of time, we wish you and yours the blessings of family and friends throughout the coming days. MARGARET DICKSON, Contributing Writer, COMMENTS? Editor@upandcom- ingweekly.com.. 910.484.6200. Ghosts of Holidays Past by MARGARET DICKSON The passage of time changes many aspects of holiday gatherings, but the love and joy in family remains.