Things happen at Thanksgiving, right? It’s like we can’t have a holiday celebrating all we should be thankful for without the universe conspiring to make us just a little bitchy about it. And maybe because of all we juggle around the holidays, it’s harder for women. Beer, a football game, and some sort of roasted dead animal on the table are all many guys need to be thankful.

Women are more susceptible. We have that thing in our heads. And no matter what kind of Thanksgiving celebration we’ve decided to participate in, no matter how modern, how streamlined, pared down, green, community-minded, or spiritual we want it to be we have these expectations of ourselves and every single person who crosses our path. That’s when the universe messes with us.

I have hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house for the past 30 years, and I have plenty examples of being profoundly and aggressively ungrateful. My personal worst best was the year the electricity went out at ten in the morning, one hour after I had put the turkey in the oven. That year my husband was away at work, and I had twenty some people arriving in hours. I managed to pull off an entire dinner on one of those round charcoal Weber grills (while it was snowing) and we all squeezed into the living room in front of the fire to eat in our coats. The silver lining (it’s mandatory to find a silver lining on Thanksgiving) was that it was cold enough to leave the leftovers out and not bother with cleaning up until the next day, but of course the electricity went back on the instant we had finished eating.

Over the years, I have gotten pretty good at pulling off a feast for two dozen people. Most of the things that would have sent me into a panic in the past I can now anticipate or adapt to. So I keep upping the ante. I want our Thanksgiving to be better each year. More thankful. Less gluttonous. This year I wanted Thanksgiving to be more integrated, less clannish. I wanted us to talk to people we don’t see often. I wanted us to come away from our time this year knowing a few more people on a deeper level.

Because we have so many people, seating is always a challenge. We’ve done the long banquet table thing, but people sit next to the same people year after year having the same conversations year after year. I wanted to orchestrate the interaction a little more this time. I thought about dividing our group into two or three smaller numbers and then having us rearrange ourselves in between courses. A Round Robin Thanksgiving. I spent weeks perusing menus that could be divided into discrete courses so as to facilitate a natural break for switching tables. Soup and salad, followed by meat and potatoes, followed by dessert? I spent days scribbling potential table groupings and regroupings. I sweated the numbers and various combinations as my guest list swelled and shrank and swelled and shrank. I considered sounding a bell to initiate a switch, mid-meal, take your plate and glass and run to the next station. A Chinese Fire Drill Thanksgiving. Thursday morning, as I penned yet another configuration of people and tables one of my sons looked over my shoulder said, “It’s Thanksgiving, not speed dating.”

Hmm. Point well made. Sanity returned.

This year a predictable number of things threw a wobble into my carefully spun event. At the last minute four people were added to the mix. (Thank goodness I’d abandoned the designated seating!) Running out of gas was the theme of the day– first my rotisserie grill at some undetermined point during the five hour roasting period, and later the car of the daughter bringing the vegetables. For the first hour and a half the two year old screamed any time someone spoke to or looked at him. Like every year, we scrambled a little, improvised some, and carried on.

There was a moment, after the food was on display, the candles lit, multiple tables set and optional casual seating provided, that I paused to enjoy the scene. But it was later, half way through the evening as my husband and I sat quietly together and shared a smile that I felt the full force of gratitude for this day. At that point plates and napkins, beer bottles and half full wine glasses littered every surface. The floor was an obstacle course of matchbox cars and legos. The guitars were out, the singing was boisterous. The five year old, wearing feathered headdress and loin cloth, hopped and whooped and beat the drums to his rain dance while the two year old lay peacefully on the floor feeding handfuls of pie to the dog. My Martha Stewart Thanksgiving had turned into Animal House. And I loved it, all the more so because of the stuff that could have ruined it for me, but didn’t.

This, I think, is the problem with Thanksgiving. It’s not the work ahead of time, or the clean-up after, and it’s certainly not that things happen. The problem with Thanksgiving is that it is only one day. On this one day the bad stuff actually reminds me to be thankful. On this one day I look for, and (surprise, surprise!) find the silver lining. On this one day I am mindfully grateful. On this one day.