A crazed turkey tradition

The picture is an angry-looking turkey.\nI'm still not sure what possessed me to draw the thing, but the turkey just looks really ticked off. Maybe he's about to be eaten, or maybe he's just mad about being overweight. But the turkey looks like he's about to chew the leg off some unsuspecting farmer.\nThis is what Thanksgiving is for me now. It's that picture of an angry turkey I drew about 15 years ago. It's probably the longest running joke in my family, and nothing has ever taken the place of it.\nIn retrospect, I probably should have softened some part of my Thanksgiving piece. The eyes could have been friendlier, or maybe the smile could have looked more like a smile than a zipper. But I was six years old. I had no clue back then my artistic abilities only extended to drawing lines that were almost straight.\nBut I can't change the past, and my family loves to throw this picture back in my face. It's like one of the things I can always be sure of in my life: Death, taxes and the "Crazed Turkey."\nAnd while this might sound like I resent talking about the picture, it is actually quite the opposite. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.\nThe holiday is almost always the same collection of people -- my immediate family.\nIt's just my mom, my dad, my sister and me.\nWe spend the entire holiday with each other, and this is one of the only times in the whole year when we are together, isolated from the rest of our family tree.\nAs I get older I realize these times are harder and harder to come by, and I know they're going to be harder to coordinate when I graduate from college in the spring.\nMy sister is already out of school and working in California, and my parents are happily living in Texas, which leaves me in the only place where you can consistently see your breath in the winter.\nWe have enough miles and time zones between us to make communication tough. Sometimes I have no idea what any of them are really doing until I see them in late November.\nAnd every time Thanksgiving passes, I feel like I have less time to tell everyone in my family how much they mean to me.\nI don't know if I'll ever have time to thank my dad for giving me all my strange idiosyncrasies. Or have the hours to explain to my mom that the reason we argue so much is because we're so alike. Or even have the moment to tell my sister that she is one of my very best friends.\nIt sounds like I'm starting to panic, and maybe I am. Maybe my pedantic roommate is starting to rub off on me, but who really knows?\nAll I know is I'm sorry I didn't cherish every moment with my family. I guess I didn't realize how special the whole situation was until my sister moved out of the house. There aren't enough "I love you's" in me to make up for all the Thanksgivings when I wished I was somewhere else.\nThe great irony of this universe is that you never realize what you have until it's gone. So try and remember what's important to you this Thanksgiving.\nI'll be thankful that I take another one on the chin from my family's collective fist, and I wish that turkey would come out more than once a year.