Thanksgiving at Aunt Boo's House: Back When I Was 6

Thanksgiving is coming but I don’t feel like giving thanks. I just found out that we will go to my Aunt Boo’s house for dinner on Thanksgiving. Aunt Boo is one of my grandma’s older sisters. She used to have a husband but she doesn't any more because he is in heaven. She doesn't have any kids either.

Aunt Boo’s name reminds me of her house, which is scary scary scary. Even when the lights are on, it feels dark. And there are places in it where we are not allowed to go. Right off the big dining room where we will eat our dinner is a door that's more glass than wood. On the other side of the door is a long hallway at the end of which is the front door. On the left side is a stairway that leads up to their upstairs, where I have never been. There's a sideboard against the wall by the stairs where there's a big ugly white swan statue. That swan scares me. Its neck is like a snake. I can't figure out why any grownup would want a swan with a snake neck in their hallway. There are never any lights on in that hallway no matter how dark it is. It looks to me like nobody lives there except maybe some ghosts. Boo!

Worst of all, there are the dogs. Aunt Boo has two great big black collie dogs with super sharp teeth and a bark that hurts my ears. They jump really high and bark like crazy when the car pulls into the driveway and they don’t stop until the people in the cars disappear inside the house. I am sure they bite. My sister and I will make my father promise to please pretty please carry us from the car to the house. My father is taller than my mother, so he’s higher up and safer. My sister and I are scared scared scared of those dogs. I think I said once that I was scared of fire and lightening the most. Well, I forgot about the dogs. Dogs are right up there with fire.  

There are lots of people at Aunt Boo’s when we go there. The grown-ups are mostly my mother’s cousins and the people they are married to. They have kids but they are pretty much older than my sister and I so we don’t play together or anything. I like to stay in the kitchen where my mother and aunt talk to all the other ladies while dinner is getting ready.

Dinner is ok because nobody pays too much attention to me and what I am eating. So mostly I can eat what I want. I like the tray with the pickles and celery and carrots and those bite-y things, radishes, on it.

There isn’t very much to do at Aunt Boo’s. Sometimes my sister and I sit on the floor in the living room and look at Aunt Boo's old stereoscope. It's sort of like a viewfinder but it's old fashioned, and you have to put these cards with the same picture on each side in the holder at the end, and look through the goggles. The one we think is funny is a man sitting on a toilet. Mommy doesn't like that one so we don't show it to her when we find it.

Sometimes I get sick on Thanksgiving and then I don't have to go to Aunt Boo's. Usually my father stays home with me while I lay on the couch and sleep. I don't think he minds a bit. Maybe that will happen this year. I would be thankful for that.