As the sugar high starts to wear off from the country’s favorite masked holiday, one of our favorite feasts is quickly approaching.

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday because of the literal cornucopia of food my mother would prepare for our family gatherings.

From year to year, our family would usually travel hundreds or thousands of miles to different family member’s homes during Christmas.

However, Thanksgiving was almost always just the five of us gathered around our wobbly dining room table.

We would eat until our stomachs felt like they would explode, but we would save just enough leftovers to make Thanksgiving goulash, sandwiches and snacks for the rest of the week.

As young children, my brothers and I made a tradition out of using construction paper to fashion pilgrim costumes and parade around the house as if we were harvesting crops of our own to prepare the meal.

For hours we would anxiously smell the aroma of my mother basting her perfect turkey in the kitchen and sneak handfuls of Chex mix when she wasn’t looking.

To this day I am tremendously thankful for those dutifully prepared Thanksgiving meals and the quiet times I enjoyed with my parents and two brothers.

Other years, we would find ourselves traveling to Mobile Bay and gathering with 60 to 80 of our closest family members.

Those trips were unique in their own way, allowing us to be thankful for our large family and the memories we made.

As my brothers and I have grown older and moved away, those Thanksgiving memories have become even more treasured as we continue to travel hundreds or thousands of miles just to have our yearly family feast full of turkey, stuffing and full-hearted laughs.