Bidens spending last Thanksgiving as president on Nantucket, a family tradition
President BidenFirst lady Jill Biden and her family are spending his final Thanksgiving holiday as president nantucket islandfollowing family tradition.
Biden traveled to a Nantucket fire station as he has done in previous years. The family is now living in the home of billionaire David Rubinstein, where they have been for three years.
This year, my daughter Ashley Biden and son Hunter Biden Traveling with Mr. Biden and the First Lady. Hunter’s wife, Melissa, and their 4-year-old son, Beau, are also traveling with them, and there may be other family members staying with the Bidens.
The beginning of a Biden family Nantucket tradition
The Biden family has been celebrating Thanksgiving on Nantucket for more than 40 years. “And celebrate Thanksgiving on Nantucket.”
Jill Biden wrote in her memoir, “Where the Light Enters,” that the Bidens began traveling to Nantucket when she and the president began dating.
“When Thanksgiving came, we knew we wanted to spend it together, but we didn’t know where,” she wrote. “My parents wanted us to join them, his parents wanted us to join them, and even Neilia’s parents extended an invitation. We were touched and grateful, but the thought of choosing one family gathering over another was stressful It was huge, so I said to Joe, ‘Let’s go somewhere, just the four of us.'”
Jill Biden said her husband’s then-chief of staff suggested going to Nantucket. Neither of them had been to Nantucket, but she said they thought “it sounded as good as anywhere else.” .
Stephanie Scarbrough/AP
“I filled the refrigerator with sandwiches and sodas, we loaded the kids into a station wagon and drove six hours to the Cape,” she wrote. “On a crowded ferry, we sailed past the beautiful Brant Point Lighthouse and arrived at the dock. Joe and I took a deep breath of the salty air as we first saw the shoreline’s shingled cottages. The air…that year we stayed in one of the waterfront huts for a hundred dollars for a whole week.”
Nantucket Thanksgiving became a family tradition for the next four decades, writes Jill Biden. “With few exceptions, we have made the trek every year since, creating rituals that will become an important part of our family,” she wrote.
“When we arrived on Nantucket, we spent a few hours wandering around the shops, and on the Friday after Thanksgiving we went to the Brotherhood of Thieves restaurant for lunch. On Friday night, we gathered on the cobblestone street, Go see Santa and watch the big Christmas. For years we took family photos in front of a charming beach house with a sign in front of it that read: Always Wild.”
Biden’s late son, Beau, proposed to his wife, Hallie, at the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in 2001, and they were married the following year at St. Mary’s Church on Nantucket.
“Hallee always suspected this was Beau’s way of locking them into the Biden family’s Thanksgiving forever,” Biden wrote. “It worked. They were celebrating their twelfth wedding anniversary over the weekend and Halle never missed a Thanksgiving Festival. Even the year Beau was stationed in Iraq, she insisted that we all keep the tradition going to Nantucket.”
“Holiday travel has been a regular part of our grandchildren’s lives for as long as they have known it, and they have made it clear how much it means to them,” Biden wrote.
Mr Biden’s decisive conversation with Beau and Hunter about the future
Biden wrote in “Promise Me, Dad” that Beau was struck down with brain cancer over Thanksgiving weekend in 2014, which weighed heavily on his decision to run for president in 2016.
Biden wrote that in the Nantucket kitchen, Beau told him “Dad, you’re wrong… you have to run. I want you to run.” He said Hunter agreed. “The three of us chatted for an hour,” he wrote.
Mr. Biden ultimately decided not to proceed with the cycle, and Beau Biden died on May 30, 2015 — That was the last year the family vacationed together on Nantucket.
“No Thanksgiving is the same,” Mr. Biden wrote.
Biden family returns to Nantucket
Jill Biden writes that in 2015, instead of going to Nantucket, the family went to Rome. “Nantucket is just another reminder of all we’ve lost, like a photo with Beau’s face cut out.”
But their grandchildren asked to return in 2016, she wrote. “Thanksgiving Day Was Nantucket. They miss the little shops, the ice cream shops we used to go to, the traditional Friday lunches. They want to watch the Christmas tree lighting and stroll the cobblestone streets. They want to be together. Feeling normal again. “
They all “easily fell back into their old habits,” she wrote.
Nantucket, she writes, is “the place where we learn how to be a family—all the complex storylines, births and deaths, marriages and divorces, hurts and healings, loves and loves, come together in this place where A small town on the edge of America.” ”
Nantucket reacts to Biden family
Jill Biden wrote in her memoir that as they drove down Main Street in 2016, store windows were plastered with signs that read “Welcome back, the Bidens!”
according to Nantucket Helen“As residents have grown accustomed to over the past three years of the Biden presidency,” downtown hotels and inns are booked out by Secret Service agents, security teams and White House reporters during the island’s typically quiet holiday season. “
“A large number of Air Force C-17s have flown in and out of the airport over the past three days, transporting vehicles and equipment, and on Monday, nearly a dozen Massachusetts State Troopers arrived on motorcycles aboard a Steamship Authority ferry,” Nantucket Current said. “Meanwhile, at Faregrounds, chef Bill Puder was cooking more than 200 turkey dinners for the Secret Service.”
Traffic and safety warnings have been issued during the Christmas tree lighting on Friday. In previous years, they have also participated in the Polar Bear Plunge on Friday.
