My favorite holiday. 

For me, Thanksgiving is like the Christmas of holidays. My family plus all of our relatives are always together up at our Grandparents house year after year. We always assume our normal sleeping rooms, unpack, and let the fun begin. For some of the years, it is snowy on Thanksgiving up in Eau Clare, so all of the cousins decide to drive over to the massive sledding hill and see who can get the most air with each jump. But sledding isn’t the best part, nor is the movie nights where we all end up spillling popcorn all over Grandma’s couch—the Schwartz/Ray family dinner is. 

Each one of the grandkids are assigned a job to help Grandma out in the kitchen with. Chopping the potatoes into tiny chunks, passing them onto my sister where she would grate them into perfect strips; then finally molding them into balls with a tiny slice of yellow butter engulfed on the inside. The best part of Thanksgiving. Of course, the pumpkin pie, turkey, gravy, stuffing, cranberries and all the other delectable dishes are amazing, but the potato dumplings are always the star of the show—mainly because of the dumpling-eating competition. 

I wait patiently on my chair, my leg bouncing up and down under the table, my mouth watering so much its like a pipe burst. I had not eaten anything at all for the entire day leading up to this. I will take back the title that my Uncle had stolen from me last year. Everybody's heads shoot up as we hear the familiar floorboards creek that lets us know she is coming…My grandma walks out holding a huge platter full of dumplings. With forks and knives all in our hands, we were about to dive in when my grandma gave a disapproving look, “We haven’t prayed yet!” Everybodys eyes fall to the ground as we realize our childish behavior has made her upset.

“...We need to pray for all of your stomachs.” she says. We all explode laughing and join hands as she sits down. After, we wait for the signal; a single bell shake sounded by my grandpa to let us know the competition has begun. Ring Ring! The bell sounded. Everybody at once digs in, and the competition begins. 

That year of Thanksgiving, there was a new dumpling eating record set by my Uncle—13 dumplings; and they were as big as a softball!! Each one he had downed I could almost hear his stomach crying out in pain, “Please. Not another one!” That year had to be the best. Our family dinners are unmatched at Thanksgiving. We always start out with the dumpling competition, then most of the kids drop out after 4 or 5 dumplings, then end with all of us saying what we are thankful for, and remembering funny stories. Thanksgiving was all about family, and even though the competition was an added bonus of bragging rights, we all did it together. When I have my own family, I hope to carry on the tradition…and finally become the reigning champ of the Schwartz/Ray dumpling eating competition.