Thanksgiving has never been my favorite holiday.

 It lacked the grandeur of Christmas, the excitement of the 4th of July, and the thrill of Halloween.

Thanksgiving had instead the anxiety of my mom planning the menu weeks in advance and laboring over the turkey on Thursday, the rest of my family frantically cleaning the day-of (because Grandma will see the square inch of dust on the banister), and everyone bumping elbows at the dining room table.

No matter how full the table was, or how much we agreed that next year we’d need to get another table for everyone, there was always a seat at the table for those who wanted one.

There was a seat for my best friend who always floated into my family holidays, solidifying her place as the fifth daughter in my family. A place for my cousin who challenged me to eat as many of grandma’s crescent rolls as I could (I hold the family record at 14). There was a place for the nieces and nephews who would steal the desserts right off our plates. There was a place for significant others who braved the waters of meeting my family all at once. There was a place for my mom’s friends, extra aunts who teased and loaded my plate with seconds.

The table always seemed too full, the room too hot, and the food gone too soon.

It wasn’t until I got older that I realized I enjoyed Thanksgiving. It was also the time I realized that we had too many seats at the table and no one to fill them. Maybe I came to this realization the year that my older sisters didn’t come to Thanksgiving so they could spend the day with their husbands instead. Or maybe it was the year that my brother chose to work Thanksgiving so his coworkers could have a seat at their own Thanksgiving table. Maybe it was the first year that my parents were separated. Maybe it was this year, knowing that my grandpa’s seat will always be empty.

The double realization took me by surprise. I can’t go back and tell myself to enjoy the crowded table and the company that filled it over the years. I can, instead, appreciate the holiday more than I have in the past. I know who will be able to come to the dining room table will always be changing, as that’s just the nature of growing older, but it makes the holiday almost bittersweet. With this in mind, this Thanksgiving I stayed at the table a little bit longer, ate a little bit more, and didn’t mind when my elbows bumped with my sister in the seat next to me.