A chance for family to gather and celebrate

Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 18.

Once a year, we prepare an irrationally large meal. We make a turkey and use a stuffing recipe that’s been in the family for decades. We cook the same casseroles and side dishes that we have at Thanksgiving every year. My wife makes a Kentucky Derby Pie, which is like a giant cookie, because most of our crew won’t eat pecan or pumpkin pie.

We pull all of the special dishes and silverware out. China that belonged to my wife’s grandmother. Goblets that were gifts from our wedding. Serving dishes that my mom used. We use the fancy table cloth and set the table correctly, with all the silverware in the right spots.

“We use the fancy table cloth and set the table correctly, with all the silverware in the right spots.”

And then we gather around the table — with as much family as we can — and have the fanciest meal we’ll have all year. We tell stories about past get togethers and the time my wife went into labor right before we were about to have our Thanksgiving meal. We eat way too much and have plenty left over. We pack up the leftovers and send them home so that everyone can have turkey sandwiches for days.

Thanksgiving is a chance to be together with family, and for me, the big meal, with a formal place setting, is a perfect symbol of that. So this week’s shirt, Fancy, is in honor of Thanksgiving — and released early so you can wear one while you prepare your own Thanksgiving feast.

Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He's currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year. Follow Bob on Twitter, Instagram and Micro.Blog.