Thanksgiving is coming up, and whatever the holiday’s origins Turkey Day means family. Often it also means stressed out folks in the kitchen, bickering and subterfuge on the porch, and oblivious football watching in the den, but that’s another story.

It’s an easy holiday to take for granted, or at the very least treat like an obligation, but as we age the family members who made Thanksgiving such a pain in the ass slowly disappear. Most drift away by choice–they marry, move away, that kind of thing. Others, though, have moved on to The Great Kiddie Table In the Sky, and that makes the holiday bittersweet.

This year my family was inches away from losing someone to California’s Camp Fire, a wildfire that I suspect will find its way into American folklore much in the way that the Chicago fire or the San Francisco earthquake did. Fortunately, that wonderful woman will be seated at our Thanksgiving table this year rather than The Great Kiddie Table In the Sky, and as a result I can’t remember ever feeling so much gratitude at this time of year.

Anyway, here are some musical family members for your Thanksgiving playlist:

“Music For My Mother,” Funkadelic.

“Dear Father,” Black Sabbath.

“Grandma’s Feather Bed,” John Denver.

“I’m My Own Grandpa,” Willie Nelson.

“Brother,” Alice In Chains.

“Sister,” Lenny Kravitz.

“Uncle Salty,” Aerosmith.

“Your Auntie Grizelda,” The Monkees.

There you have it: Thanksgiving for eight. Who did I miss? I’m listening.