Thanksgiving in July: How Downsizing Helped

lady heloping family pack belongins and downsize

Laughter, sibling banter, everyone leaning back and rubbing their rounded full bellies – these are the precious memories everyone hopes for when family is gathered around for Thanksgiving dinner.  

For our clients, preparing to downsize and move into smaller homes or senior communities, these are the stories they reminisce about as we begin the process of packing their belongings.  They may linger over the table or rub a corner as they share.  It is part of the process of finding the “peace to release”.  

They spent a shiny penny on the sacred dining room set back in the day to create that scene.  It now sits alone and empty in the room.  We had just such a client that quietly admitted they could count the number of times on one hand in the last 20 years that the table fulfilled that Norman Rockwell fantasy.

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Two big hearted women, Jackie and Jody who separately felt the calling into foster care were raising gaggles of children through the years.  They realized that together they could help each other and the kids by combining their two families to make one family of 12.  

For most of us, the very thought of cooking and feeding for that many mouths, (all under 13 years old) three times a day would make us back away.  Not these two incredibly determined mamas, even if that meant feeding them at three separate tables set up throughout the home.  Three separate tables of elbow jabs, and spilt milk and stuck on Mac n’ Cheese.

Through the Pathfinders Downsizing Solutions program, Project Good Works, we were able to connect this foster family of 12 to the sacred dining table, complete with the matching hutch.  We shared the just pictures of the table with Jackie and Jody, not even the dimensions but they immediately said,” Yes please!”  

Before seeing the furniture and through their Covid masks and appropriate distancing, Jackie and Jody shared the story of their robust family with our clients.  The tears collected in the eyes of our clients when they heard the size of the brood.  Through a cracking voice they whispered, “this table sits 14”.  

Laughter, sibling banter, everyone leaning back and rubbing their rounded full bellies – these are the precious memories everyone hopes for when family is gathered around for Thanksgiving dinner – three times a day, even in July.

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