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Tootall, I wrote this hurriedly so as to put copies in my niece's and nephew's cards. I have no desire to ever publish for the market. I only want to leave stories for my family who come behind me.

A timely piece for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, Helen! It reminds me of the Virginia Slims ads... We've come a long way, baby, from the days of the old Model T. I'd place a bet that the great majority of young people never heard of chow-chow, piccalilli, or even mincemeat pies, especially home-made! My mother used to make a "Green Tomato Mincemeat" when she didn't have the meat to make the real stuff. Good old Depression Days kind of cooking. Yep, we've come a long way, baby!

Happy Thanksgiving wishes to you, and thanks for the memories!

Here's some of the necessary corrections. I don't know if I found them all, this was just a quick edit. You need to watch your tenses, keep it all in the same tense.

Brrr! It was a cold day. We were all bundled up to go to Uncle Tom and Aunt Janie Barnard's for Thanksgiving dinner. Dad had stashed the curtains to the model T in the garage for the summer, but now they were pulled out and snapped to the sides. The cold wind still slipped in around the sides so we had a lot of quilts to wrap up in. After much lurching and sputtering and a few curses muttered under his breath, Dad was able to get the car cranked, so off we went. Us kids were so excited, because seldom got to go such a long distance to visit folks. Rogersville was as far as we had been, just a few miles down the road. Now we would be going nearly to Fordland, which seemed worlds away to us. The trip was uneventful this time, since there was no car trouble. With us kids deeply ensconced in the quilts, we didn't cause any trouble either. Daddy stopped the car in the yard, then we dug ourselves out of the quilts to unload our basket of food. Mama had made chow-chow, piccalilly, and mincemeat pies.
There were a lot of folks there ahead of us. Maybe their cars ran faster, since ours wasn't exactly the latest model, I figured this was probably the case. Right off, we all met Aunt Janie's sister, Maudie. Now Maudie was "not quite right in the head." She followed us around giggling. That was somewhat upsetting to us. She was a big gal and never said anything just that silly constant giggle. We had never been around anyone like that so we tried to find ways to escape the gal. We could run a lot faster than her, so we hid out behind the barn. She finally found us and we were trying to decide how to shake her, A big bellow from one of the cows did the trick as it scared the heebie-jeebies out of her. She ran to the house. We weren't scolded for trying to be rid of her. She didn't seem to mind anyway. I guess she was used to it.
We played tag and other chasing games with Cletus,Christie, Clyde and Coleen. They were all cousins and we liked playing with them. Cletus lived real close to Uncle Tom and Aunt Janie. We had been to their house once. Uncle Tom was Grandma White's brother.
Finally they hollered for us to come eat. Boy howdy, was there ever a big table of food. I hardly knew where to start. Oh, yes I will get a fried pie first before they are all gone. I grabbed an apricot fried pie then wrapped it in a napkin for safe keeping. Besides the chicken and dressing there were heaped up bowls of mashed potatoes, beans (both kinds), turnips, sweet taters, and loaves of hot bread. There were all kinds of pies and cakes too. I nearly made myself sick. After I stuffed myself until my belly ached I found a stalk of celery to munch on to settle my tummy. It seemed to help, to this day, I don't know why.
After the dishes were washed and the food was put away the grownups visited while us kids played all around. We could barely run though. We were all too full of good food. I liked the chocolate pie best. Eula made it and she is a good cook. I liked everything she made.
Along about three in the afternoon we started home after dad was able to get that cranky car started. He had put a quilt over the hood to try to keep it a little warm. We all got in, pulled the quilts up around us, then started the long trip home. After we passed Rogersville, it started to snow. It was falling softly and looked so nice. We were all snug under the quilts, and the wind wasn't blowing now. The soft, white snow lightly covered the ground. It was such a nice day and a good time with kinfolks. Better yet, what a great feast!! All in all, a very good Thanksgiving, the one I most fondly remember.

Perhaps for things like children's cards, you shouldn't edit it. I don't know, that's up to you. I do want your writing to improve on the technical side of it, since you have a gift for the creative side of it.

Thanks Tootall and Dilly. This is exactly the kind of help I need and appreciate. Your critique was very concise and right on the money. I am glad I made my story so short. Now I can go back and revise it. Tootall, I am leaving out the plethora of ands. Thanks for the great help.

Put "We could barely run though," and "We were all too full of good food." together in one sentence, We could barely run, because we were too full of good food for that, a fast waddle was about all we could manage." or something to that effect.