DJ carefully aimed his camera at Nonna, Danny and Grace, seated side by side by side on one of the deck's benches. "Say cheese!"

"Cheeeeeese!" the three replied with matching wide smiles.

DJ clicked the picture then checked the viewfinder to make sure he'd captured the image he was after. "This looks perfect. Thanks!" He beamed.

"Tell me again about this project you're doing for school, Tesoro," Nonna said. "It sounds very exciting."

"It is." DJ crawled into her lap to explain the details whie Danny and Grace shared a smile, each knowing the special magic of Nonna's lap. "Everyone in my class is doing a report about what they do over Thanksgiving break. We can draw pictures, take photos, write journal entries … whatever we want. I'm gonna do a mixture of all three."

Nonna kissed his forehead. "Sounds wonderful."

"The best part," he told her, "Is that we'll all get to learn about different traditions and the way other families celebrate. Doesn't that sound fun?"

"It sounds amazing," Nonna replied sincerely. "I can't wait to hear about all the ways your classmates celebrate."

"Michael and his family eat ham and roast beef instead of turkey," DJ said. "And then they put up their Christmas tree on Thanksgiving night."

Angie, who was crossing the deck with a cookie in each hand, heard the tail end of the conversation and perked up immediately. "Are we putin' up our Christmas tree?" she asked excitedly.

"Not yet." Catherine chuckled. "But soon."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"What's your favorite Thanksgiving memory from when you were my age?" DJ asked Gabby and Jenna as he sat across from them, pencil and notebook in hand.

"I remember how delicious my mother's sweet potato casserole was." Jenna smiled softly at the memory. "It had toasted marshmallows on top and to this day I think it's the best thing I ever ate. I used to try to make it myself but it never tasted as good so I just gave up."

"I think you're a good cook," DJ assured her as he took down some notes. "Your pecan pie was super good. Me and Aunt Carrie both said so."

"Thank you." Jenna smiled. "You're very sweet."

"What about you, Aunt Gabby?" DJ asked.

"I think my favorite memory is my grandmother making stuffing," she said. "She'd cook up the butter and all the spices in a big skillet on the stove and the whole kitchen smelled amazing. Then before she poured it over the bread cubes she'd let us dip a piece of fresh bread in the pan and take a taste. It was one of my favorite things about the entire day."

"That sounds yummy," DJ said as he wrote. "I might ask if I can try that next time we have stuffing."

"You definitely should." Gabby tousled his hair. "I think you'd like it."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

"My dad would always take all of us kids out on a long trail ride in the morning so my mom could get things organized without all of us under foot," Kendra told DJ. "Then when we got back we all had specific jobs to do to help get ready. Between our family and friends we usually had about thirty people for Thanksgiving dinner."

"You have a big family like we do!" DJ replied happily.

Kendra nodded. "I sure do."

"Do you miss not having Thanksgiving dinner with them this year?" he asked.

"Kinda," she admitted. "But I know I'll be going home for Christmas in a few weeks so that makes it easier. Well … that and being here with all of you. It feels a lot like being home."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"We talked to Aunt Mary, Uncle Aaron, Joan, and Aunt Deb earlier," DJ told Chin, Leilani, Kono, and Adam after carefully taking down their reminiscences of Thanksgivings spent with their large Hawaiian families. "And guess what? Casey is there too! She's working on a big project for school and she needs to get it done so she couldn't come home."

"She's been working really hard on it all semester," Kono said. "She said her classes are a little tougher this year but she loves it."

"I wish I'd been as motivated when I was a student," Adam chuckled.

"It's nice she has family there in LA she can spend the holiday with," Chin said.

"They're eating at Joan's grandma and abuelo's house and guess what?" DJ eyes danced with excitement. "They're eating Mexican Thanksgiving food instead of turkey."

Leilani smiled. "That sounds delicious."

"I know!" DJ agreed. "They're all coming to Hawaii for Christmas. And they said we can cook Mexican food one night! Doesn't that sound great?"

"It sure does." Chin leaned in towards DJ and said, "If there's anything you can do to wrangle me an invitation to dinner that night I'd appreciate it."

"Ditto!" Adam, Kono, and Leilani agreed.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I remember one year," Carrie said. "I was stationed in South Korea and Uncle John managed to get a 36 hour leave and he flew to see me."

"I spent more time on a plane that we actually got to spend together," John said. "But it was totally worth it."

Carrie smiled. "It was so cold. I mean … it's always cold there in the winter but this was unusually cold for late November. I was stationed at an outpost a few miles away from the base. The wind was blowing so hard through the mess tent it almost blew the food off the table."

"Not to mention you had to eat fast or everything was gonna freeze," John joked.

"We took our pie and snuck off to the supply tent … " Carrie remembered her audience included several children and stopped short. "We only had a few hours to catch up and talk then Uncle John had to catch a plane."

"I spent 14 hours in the air and 12 hours in airports then 2 hours in a jeep over rough terrain just to spend 8 hours with your Aunt Carrie. And you know what?" John beamed. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I remember one year," Danny said when it was his turn to share a favorite memory with DJ. "We were all at Nonna's house as usual and the meal was about halfway done. The house smelled great and I could practically taste all the deliciousness that was about to happen."

DJ carefully wrote down every detail.

"I was standing in the kitchen," Danny continued, "Helping Nonna arrange the antipasto tray, when all of the sudden it felt like it was raining inside the house."

DJ's eyes widened. "What happened?"

"What I remember most is Nonna and my mother and assorted aunts and relatives grabbing the food they were working on and trying to cover it up to keep it from getting wet. After a few minutes of chaos we realized a pipe had burst in the bathroom upstairs. My dad got the water turned off but it was too late. The food was all ruined."

"What did you do?" DJ asked as he got so wrapped up in the story he stopped taking notes.

Danny smiled across the room at his beloved grandmother. "To absolutely no one's surprise Nonna handled it like a star." He smiled. "She threw away all the wet food and while my dad worked on fixing the pipe she whipped up a delicious meal with what she had in the pantry. Luckily she had some bottled water to keep things moving in the kitchen until my dad was done. We didn't have turkey but I still think it was one of the best Thanksgivings we ever had."

"Were you there, Grace?" DJ asked his cousin.

"No." She smiled. "I wasn't born yet."

"She wasn't there for that one but I could tell you about another year that Grace spent all morning in the kitchen. It was her first year of helping cook and she was very excited. Every time I walked through she was tasting something else. I told her to be careful or she was gonna get sick before we even sat down to eat."

"No one needs to hear this story again," Grace said.

DJ looked between the two. "I've never heard it."

Danny grinned. "When it came time to eat she piled a little bit of everything on her plate with an extra big scoop of stuffing. I tried to warn her but she wasn't having it."

Grace rolled her eyes.

"As she started to eat she couldn't wait to tell us who had prepared each dish and what she'd done to help," Danny said, then paused.

"Go ahead," Grace said good naturedly. "Tell the rest of the story."

"Well …" Danny smirked gleefully. "She got about halfway through the stuffing and her little face went pale and I could tell what was about to happen. Luckily I managed to jump up, grab her and get her away from the table before she threw up everything she'd eaten all morning." He gave his daughter a playful look. "All over me."

Grace blushed.

"I had to hose us both off," Danny teased.

"I remember I took a nap and then later Nonna brought a tray of soup up to my room," Grace said softly. "She always knows exactly how to make me feel better."

"I, on the other hand, had to throw away the clothes I was wearing and it took years before I could look at stuffing again without thinking of that day," Danny teased.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"My favorite Thanksgiving was the year it rained real hard and the power went out and we ended up having a sleepover!" Jacob said, nearly as excited to relive the memory as he was the day it happened.

"I was still a little afraid of Cammie then so the girls slept upstairs and it was so fun," Kaitlyn remembered. "We couldn't finish cooking the food and we didn't know what we were gonna do but then Cody remembered Mr. Jirou would be checking on the store and he called and Mr Jirou said we could go and get some groceries. That was a really good idea, Cody," she said.

"Thanks." He smiled at his younger siblings.

"They got all the things to make flatbread pizzas," Dylan added. "It was awesome. Then we built a huge fort and slept in the living room."

"I remember the two of you were too excited to get to sleep," Cody teased his brothers.

"All the pizza and junk food might have played a role in that," Jenna pointed out.

"I'm kinda sorry I missed that year," Jess said. "It sounds like fun."

"It was!" Jacob replied. "It was the best Thanksgiving ever!"

Cody laughed out loud. "Somehow I knew you were gonna say that."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"It's really hard to single out just one Thanksgiving memory," Elizabeth said. "There have been a lot of good ones."

"What about the first year you cooked the whole dinner yourself," Grandma Ang suggested with a twinkle in her eye. "That was quite a year."

"It certainly was," Joseph agreed. "I remember it like it was yesterday."

Elizabeth chuckled. "Probably because you narrowly avoided getting your stomach pumped."

Joseph kissed her cheek. "It wasn't that bad."

"I appreciate you saying that but yes, it was." Elizabeth shook her head at the memory and smiled at DJ. "It was the first year your grandfather and I were married. I was very excited to host Thanksgiving at our first apartment. Grandma Ang offered to fly in a few days early to help me get ready but I insisted I could do it all alone. I was determined, but also a little stubborn."

"At least you come by it naturally," Steve whispered to Catherine.

"I got up at the crack of dawn to start cooking," Elizabeth said. "I prepped everything just the way I'd watched your great grandmother do it for years." She shook her head. "Or at least I thought it was exactly the same way."

"As soon as I walked into the apartment I knew something wasn't right." Grandma Ang chuckled. "There was a weird smell in the air."

"That was probably the smell of charred baking powder I'd used to put out about half a dozen burner fires that morning," Elizabeth snorted. "There was no middle ground that day. Things were either burned or half raw. Or in the case of the turkey, somehow both at the same time."

"It definitely wasn't your best effort," Joseph agreed diplomatically.

"The thing I remember most about that day is that you both ate the entire meal without complaining. I felt like such a failure when I put the food on the table but by the time dessert came I felt like … well, I knew I had lots to learn but I also knew that I had all the support I could possibly need to do better next time."

"Did you let Grandma Ang help you the next time?" DJ asked.

Elizabeth reached out and took her mother's hand. "The next time and every time since."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I think I've gotten a memory from everybody else," DJ told his parents as the day began to wind down. "Now it's your turn. What's your favorite Thanksgiving memory?"

"What you fav'rite?" Angie asked from her spot in Steve's lap.

Steve looked at Catherine and they both smiled. "There have been a lot of great Thanksgiving memories," he said. "They keep getting better every year so I'm gonna have to say my favorite Thanksgiving is this one."

Catherine beamed. "I couldn't agree more. This has been my favorite." Her eyes sparkled. "Until next year of course."

# End. Thanks for reading!

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