About a month out from Thanksgiving, grandpa Kurt sent out his yearly invitation to the entire family, seeing if they were coming for dinner. At this point, it was pretty much assumed that this invite also included the Body Exchange tradition which often was the factor that kept people away. Immediately, Kurt along with his wife, grandma Elma, received messages from family members saying that they weren’t going to make it this year. Kurt nor Elma took this personal and took whatever wins they could get which came when their only “Yes” came in.
Max was Kurt and Elma’s oldest child and basically was a “Yes” most years when it came to joining the family for Thanksgiving. He loved spending the holidays with his parents and wasn’t scared of the tradition. When he first got introduced to the tradition and the history, Max wasn’t scared nor creeped out by it like his siblings or other family members. Instead, Max was fascinated by the Body Exchange and would soon get a taste of becoming practically every type of person in the family. He could still remember being a teenager and swapping with his grandmother, something that ended up becoming his best memory of her even after she passed away. To say that this was important to Max was an underestimate as this year it seemed him and his family would be the only ones participating.
When Max met his now wife, she had no clue what type of family she was getting involved with. When they were dating, Max’s wife, Amanda, was brought to Thanksgiving one year in which the family took their time introducing the tradition to her. Perhaps that day was the day that proved Amanda was the one for Max as instead of accepting the offer to simply observe the Body Exchange, Amanda participated without knowing fully what she was getting involved in. That year, Amanda ended up swapping with Max’s uncle which was a very interesting way to introduce her to living as another person.
Max and Amanda have been married for over 20 years now and had kids along the way that participate in the tradition. Their oldest child, Tiffany, had just turned 19 and had entered college. Being the oldest, perhaps she felt the same way about her parents that Max felt with his own as Tiffany participated in the tradition to keep a strong bond with Max and Amanda. Some years, she’d find herself in a body that sort of creeped her out like Kurt or Max’s but she kept the same mindset that built this tradition, that this was all to make you thankful for your own body.
The way Tiffany felt about the tradition was the exact opposite of how Max and Amanda’s middle child, Ben, felt. Ben was 16 and was going through an interesting time in his life. Caught in the middle of his high school career, Ben was cautious about how he was viewed by others. Every time he was forced to participate in the Body Exchange, Ben worried every night that whoever got his body would ruin his life and reputation. Most of the time, this was a fear that was based on nothing as most people outside of the family never noticed anything strange about anyone involved in the swaps.
The youngest child, Carly, had the least to say about the tradition as she was just starting to get the hang of it. Being only 9 years old, Carly was too young to have strong opinions. Instead, she often found joy simply swapping with someone older than herself, even if it was one of her grandparents. This opinion might change as the years went on but for now Carly simply had the childhood wonder with the Body Exchange.
Thanksgiving finally rolled around as Max along with the rest of his family arrived at Kurt and Elma’s house. Immediately, you could see how everyone felt about the impending Body Exchange as most were excited except for Ben who still felt the same about the Body Exchange as he’d felt for the past couple of years. Entering the house, they were all greeted with hugs and kissing from Kurt and Elma who welcomed them inside. The men along with Carly went to the living room as Amanda and Elma went to the kitchen to tend to the Turkey.
