Tell Your Story Through Journaling

Tell Your Story Through Journaling: Holiday Meals – The Ones We Will Never Forget

A journal series for women who are ready to tell their story.

There is something about a holiday meal that lives forever in the memory.

The smells that hit you the moment you walk through the door. The familiar faces around the table. The dishes that only appear once a year and somehow taste better every time. And occasionally, just occasionally, the meal that goes so gloriously wrong that it becomes the story your family tells for decades.

Today we are talking about food, family, and the holiday meals that never left us.

This Week’s Journal Prompt

“Tell us about the most memorable holiday meal you ever had. Was it magical, disastrous, or somewhere beautifully in between?”

Let It Unfold on the Page

Pull up a chair and let the memories come. Here are a few gentle nudges to help you go deeper:

 

• Which holiday was it? Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, a birthday celebration? Set the scene for us.
• Where did the meal take place? Your childhood home, a relative’s house, a restaurant, somewhere completely unexpected?
• Who was around the table? Paint us a picture of the people who made that meal what it was.
• What was on the table? The dishes, the smells, the tastes. Was there something that only your family made, a recipe that belonged to just you?
• Was there a moment during that meal you will never forget? Something that was said, something that happened, a moment that made everyone laugh or go completely silent?
• Was it memorable for the right reasons or the wrong ones? Or was it one of those meals that was a disaster in the moment but became pure gold in the retelling?
• How did the day end? Did everyone leave full and happy, or did the evening take an unexpected turn?

There are no wrong answers here. The disasters make the best stories. And the beautiful ones deserve to be written down too.

Why This Prompt Matters

Holiday meals are about so much more than food.

They are about the people who gathered, the traditions that were kept, and the moments that happened somewhere between the appetizers and the dessert. They are about the grandmother who made the same recipe every single year, the uncle who always told the same story, and the year everything went sideways in the most spectacular way.

Writing these memories down is a way of preserving not just what was on the table, but who was around it. And for the people who come after you, these stories are a window into a world they never got to see.

So pick up your pen and take us there.

 

My Stories: Two Thanksgivings Worth Telling

 

I have two Thanksgiving memories that live at opposite ends of the spectrum, and I love them both equally.

The Turkey Carcass of Blowing Rock, North Carolina

My husband at the time, my two elementary school daughters, and I had made our way up to the mountains of North Carolina for Thanksgiving weekend. We loved those mountains, Blowing Rock and Boone especially, and we went often. But on this particular trip we had made one critical error. We had not made reservations.

The restaurant we had planned on had no tables. So we drove. And we drove. Through the dark mountain roads, tired and hungry, the girls in the back seat, all of us holding onto the hope that something would appear.

It was close to eight o’clock at night when we saw it. A sign, glowing in the darkness like an oasis calling our names. Thanksgiving Buffet. We thought we had hit the jackpot.

We pulled in. There were only a handful of people inside, which we probably should have taken as a sign. But we were too hungry and too relieved to notice. We found our seats, grabbed our plates, and headed to the buffet line with our mouths already watering for turkey and all the fixings.

And there it was.

The turkey. Or more precisely, what used to be the turkey. By the time we arrived the only thing left on that platter was the carcass. Nothing but bones standing where a beautiful bird had once been.

We looked at each other. We looked at the bones. And then we did what any good family does in a moment like that. We made the best of it.

My daughters, bless their hearts, made pretend turkeys out of their mashed potatoes. We laughed, we ate whatever was left on that buffet, and we created a memory that has outlasted every perfect Thanksgiving meal we ever had.

The Thanksgiving I Grew Up With

Back home in Maryland it was a different kind of Thanksgiving altogether.

Our table always held the classics. Turkey, bread stuffing, and oyster stuffing, which was my brother Jimmy’s absolute favorite and appeared every single year without fail. We would eat until the tryptophan took over and every one of us was fighting to keep our eyes open.

But before the naps came the walk.

My dad had eighty acres of land, and every Thanksgiving after dinner he would lead us kids out through the woods while my mom and Aunt Charlotte stayed behind to clean up the kitchen. Those woods were beautiful in late November. The hardwood trees had dropped their leaves and they covered the ground in thick rustling layers of gold and red and brown. There were hills and streams and we would make our way down to a branch of the Choptank River, breathing in that cool Maryland air and feeling the kind of full that only a Thanksgiving meal can bring.

Now I will mention that just before the river there was a sign posted on the neighboring property. Trespassers Will Be Shot. Every year we walked right past it. And every year we survived, which I can say with confidence because our neighbors were perfectly lovely people who I very much doubt ever shot anyone in their lives.

After the walk came the naps. Or at least the hope of naps. Because somewhere along the way cleaning the garage after Thanksgiving dinner became a family tradition. Nobody wanted to do it except my dad, and he would inevitably end up yelling at my brothers while they shuffled around that very large garage wishing they were anywhere else.

I was the only girl. And more often than not I quietly slipped out of that particular duty entirely. I will not pretend I was sorry about it.

An Invitation

 

Now it is your turn.

Think about the holiday meal that lives most vividly in your memory. The one that makes you smile, laugh, or shake your head every time it comes to mind. Write it all down, every detail, every person, every dish, and every moment that made it unforgettable.

And when you are done share a line or a memory in the comments. I have a feeling this one is going to bring out some of the best stories yet.

Your story is worth telling.

KathieyV

Tell Your Story Through Journaling | A series for women with stories worth telling