Summary: It's Thanksgiving! Time for another "first holiday together" fic. Wheeler takes Linka and the other Planeteers home for a traditional Thanksgiving meal and tells everyone what he's thankful for...gee, I wonder what it is?
Disclaimer: The characters that you recognize from the Captain Planet series are not mine. The ones you don't recognize, are not mine either! They belong to themselves. The winners of the previous fic's challenge will be making an appearance in this one!
A/N: Just wanted to get a little bit of an "appetizer" out there for you guys while I finish working on the rest of it.
Giving Thanks
Thanksgiving is definitely my favorite holiday…It's like Christmas except there's no stress! No worries about finding the perfect gift or decorating the house only to have to take it all down a few weeks later. There's no songs that start out putting you in the holiday spirit, but after hearing two hundred different versions of Jingle Bell Rock two MILLION times, makes you feel all "bah, humbug." IT'S THANKSGIVING! It's all about waking up on Thanksgiving morning and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The floats, the balloons, the marching bands, performances from the latest pop stars whose careers won't last long enough to be around for the following year's parade! And after the parade, it's about football! Watching football games from afternoon until nighttime, just vegging out on the couch cheering on whichever team Dad was cheering for because he most likely had alot of money on the game…ok, so Thanksgiving in the Wheeler household was a little different than most…It's about appreciating everything that you have…friends, family, a good life…but mostly it's about the FOOD!
Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, yams, cranberries, corn, fresh baked rolls with butter, all kinds of different casseroles, pumpkin pie with a ton of Cool Whip, apple pie with vanilla ice cream, Aunt Robin's peanut butter pie which she makes especially for me since she knows how much I love it…my stomach doesn't know whether to growl or explode!
It's also my favorite holiday because when I was a kid, it was the ONE DAY of the year when it seemed like I came from a normal family. My dad was on his best behavior around the rest of the family. He was putting on that "perfect husband, perfect father" show. He'd carve the turkey, lead us all in prayer as we said "Grace" before we ate. But most importantly, he didn't drink. At Christmas, he had eggnog and he and my uncles would get pretty tanked on that…it was "tradition" they would say. Problem is, my uncles only drank occassionaly…socially…so getting tanked once a year on eggnog wasn't a big deal. They didn't come home from Grandma's and start wailing on their wife and kids like my old man did.
Even though I love Thanksgiving and spending time with my family, it had been a few years since I went home for it. We would usually just do something little here on Hope Island…if we had time, that is. It was never the same. Never a real turkey, just pre-sliced, processed meat in frozen gravy…pop it in the oven, and you've got yourself an instant turkey meal. Instant mashed potatoes instead of the real thing. No casseroles, no pies, no football…just a bland, although well meaning, dinner, and then everyone just went about the rest of their day. Not this year though. This year, I'm going home and I'm bringing all the Planeteers with me so they can experience a real Thanksgiving. Partly because I'm continuing the tradition of making me and Linka's first holidays together special, but mostly it's because I'm ready for the next step in our relationship...I'm gonna introduced Linka to my family!