Today, I am participating in a blog swap sponsored by Bloggers Helping Bloggers. I am thrilled to present this Thanksgiving memory from The Debt Princess herself.

Thanksgiving, in my childhood years, meant a big family packed tight into a house with lots of food and fun times with cousins I didn’t see very often.

That changed in high school thanks to my Contemporary American History class. During this class, we studied the song, Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie. The song and history attached to it provided me a link to my father. We spoke about history rarely, it was a favorite topic of my father’s and a dreaded class that I always did poorly in school.

The song, set on Thanksgiving day is a Cincinnati tradition. (If it’s a tradition anywhere else in the US, I don’t know about it so for now, it’s a Cincinnati tradition). Every Thanksgiving at 12 noon, Alice’s Restaurant is played in it’s entirety on the radio. Every Thanksgiving at 12 noon, I would call my father and we would listen to it together.

My father passed away in 2000 and that year, as well as a couple there after where it was just too difficult to listen to the song. Gradually it became easier to do and the tradition returned. The past two years however, I have shared this tradition with my children.

My oldest son is a history buff (something he clearly did not get from me). He also enjoys discussing and debating social injustice, war and music. Alice’s Restaurant fits into everything that he enjoys and now he also enjoys this Thanksgiving tradition.

Thanksgiving has changed since I was a little girl. There’s no longer a house packed full of cousins I rarely see or my father to talk to while we listen to the radio. There is, however the opportunity to continue a tradition with my children who can, hopefully share it with their own someday too.

A Thanksgiving Day tradition that began thanks to a high school history teacher, my father’s love for history and my desire to connect with him.

Jessica Streit is a single-mom, teacher, serial debtor and the owner of the blog, The Debt Princess. She shares her struggles with debt, the lessons she’s learned in her journey towards financial freedom and the many ways she has learned how to live a fabulous life on less.