Did you know Thanksgiving will be in a week after tomorrow?

My oldest son doesn’t really like anything about Thanksgiving. He endures it. My youngest son loves mashed potatoes, and so he loves Thanksgiving.

I pretty much love Thanksgiving food. I like turkey and cranberries, rolls and mashed potatoes, stuffing and sweet potatoes. I like pies and whipped cream and even green beans and carrots.

I am fine with the boxed and canned and cheap versions of everything. I don’t need it to be homemade and fancy, and sometimes it sort of ruins the dish when it is trying to be something different.

Oh, and I really do like Jell-O.

Growing up, my mom came up with a rainbow Jell-O recipe, which consists of 12 layers, in rainbow order, of Jell-O. It happened every year, and Thanksgiving just isn’t the same without it. Rainbow Jell-O is Thanksgiving for our family.

Well, we all got older and married and went to to other family’s Thanksgiving celebrations, and now instead of sharing a large pan of rainbow Jell-O with each other, we often make our own and bringing it to lots of different celebrations.

This year, I’ve found all my colors, and I’m traveling, and very much hoping that my Jell-O can endure some time in the cooler and uncertain if there will be space in a fridge for it. But I’m going to try.

When I make my own Thanksgiving, the food is exactly how I like it. And then there are other years when the turkey is really overcooked, or the stuffing is rice pilaf instead of stuffing, or there aren’t enough mashed potatoes, or the sweet potatoes don’t have enough sugar, or dinner is two hours late and eaten on my lap on the front porch with a plastic fork.

But I can just remember that I can come home, and cook my own meal, even pour some more rainbow Jell-O. Thanksgiving is about the food, but the people who make it are more important.