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In October 1990, I left my Florida hometown for Virginia to marry my long-distance boyfriend, Jay, who was a sailor in the Navy. We’d only been together a few months — and by “together,” I mean we spent a total of two weeks in person, with the rest of our whirlwind relationship made up of long (and expensive!) phone calls and frequent snail mail letters. They said it wouldn’t last, but we’ve now been together for 35 years — my second-longest relationship ever after my best friend, Sheri.
I met Sheri in Florida in July 1988 when I was a 21-year-old Eckerd Drug photo-lab manager, and she was a rising high school senior looking for a part-time job. It was a first for both of us — she was the first person I ever interviewed and hired, and working for me was her first paying job.
We lived in the same state for only a year before she went off to college, and shortly after, I moved to Virginia and got married. While I followed my sailor husband up and down the East Coast, Sheri finished her education and built a vibrant career in advertising. Despite our different paths, we stayed close no matter where we were, thanks to one beloved tradition: every Thanksgiving, Sheri flies to my house for the week.
Sheri was there when I was newly married and still learning how to prepare a proper Thanksgiving dinner. She was there when my husband was away on deployment and it was just the two of us. She was there when I was hugely pregnant with my first son and my husband was three months into an eight-month deployment in the Middle East. She was there for both of my babies’ births as well as their first Thanksgivings — and now my two teenagers look forward to her annual visits, saying it doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving until Aunt Sheri is here.
Our Thanksgiving tradition has continued through most of life’s transitions, with only a couple of exceptions: one year Sheri postponed her visit due to a death in her family (she came at Christmas instead), and in 2020, we decided it just wasn’t safe because of COVID. After missing that year, I was doubly happy to see her — masked at the airport — in 2021. More than anything, having Sheri visit that year made it feel like we might actually be able to return to our normal lives again.
Sheri’s arrival, typically on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, is the highlight of my holiday season. It feels as if no time has passed since we were last together, and we fall into a natural rhythm of companionship. Part of that rhythm is our must-do list: we make the menu together and do the grocery shopping, which somehow takes two hours but is always so much fun. There’s the night-before pie-making, the day-of cooking, eating and then relaxing with pie while watching television classics like A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. The next day, there’s shopping, of course, but the real highlight is Sheri’s favorite ritual of the week: the leftover turkey sandwiches. Somewhere in there, we watch a few shows, go to brunch, linger in coffee shops, and talk and talk and talk — conversations that never seem to run out.
This year will mark our 34th Thanksgiving reunion, and like previous visits, it will be filled with laughter, old stories, Black Friday shopping trips, day-after turkey sandwiches, and cranberry sauce debates. (I make a lovely cranberry relish, while Sheri insists the only acceptable cranberry sauce comes from a can.) Each year it is both the same and somehow new, changing ever so slightly as we both get older.
As the years go by, I’ve come to realize just how special this annual reunion is. There are so many friendships I only manage to keep up with in texts or quick social media exchanges. But Sheri is different. This yearly reunion is a constant in my life — something that sustains our friendship and keeps it thriving. Our week together grounds me, reminding me of who I was before marriage, kids and middle age, and helping me feel like that version of myself again.
It’s a gift to have someone who has truly known me through all my stages of life. We laugh over Thanksgiving disasters — like the year we left the potatoes sitting too long before mashing them and they turned into glue, or the year I skipped basting the turkey on Alton Brown’s advice and filled the house with smoke when the pan overflowed. We catch up on what we’ve been doing over the last twelve months and share our hopes and dreams for the coming year, knowing that our friendship will still be there, no matter what happens.
The truth is, friendships like this don’t come along often. They require history, a deep well of trust, and a willingness to pick up right where we left off, no matter the time or distance apart. Sheri knows my whole history — the good, the bad, the embarrassing, and the heartbreaking — and she still shows up year after year with a carry-on bag and an open heart. She long ago stopped feeling like just a friend and became part of my family, the kind I actually got to choose. And for that, I am so, so thankful each and every year.
What kind of traditions do you have related to Thanksgiving? Let us know in the comments below.
Juliette Borda
