Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. Yes, I love the exorbitant quantity of ingestibles that are consumed. I love my personal ritual of polishing off my own bottle on Pinot Grigio as the day progresses. I even love plopping on the couch after the massive cleanup effort.
Why do I love it so?
Well, yeah, I live to eat, but hell, I can gorge almost any day of the year, so a Thursday in late November isn’t quite so special in that regard.
When it comes down to it, it is because of my insane family, and the fact that I really have no warm-fuzzy recollections of Thanksgivings as a kid.
My parents divorced when I was 7 or so, and while my Mom and I always seemed to wind up somewhere, at some friends’ house, it never seemed to me that it was a special gathering of my family. We were always guests (albeit welcome ones) joining someone else’s family.
Later, after my mother passed away when I was 19, my Dad and I developed a sporadic Thanksgiving ritual of going to Atlantic City for Thanksgiving. (There were years where we were invited to various friends’ homes, mostly separate ones, so we did skip some years at the craps tables). As practical matters went, it was a great day of the year to gamble, as it the casinos were always relatively empty. While this was a fun ritual for me and my Dad, I knew even then, it was not the Norman Rockwell version of what I thought most of the country was experiencing as a traditional Thanksgiving. At the time, I didn’t particularly pine for such an experience, but I was aware of what I was missing. Dad and I made the best of it.
In 1989, I got married and shortly afterward, my wife and I bought our first house. I still recall the anticipation of the “first” Thanksgiving in my “first, real” house. Hell, I was looking forward to just not having to sit at the “little kids’” card table. I knew was gonna sit, not only at the Big Table, but at the head of it. I might even have done some George Jefferson strutting in the days leading up to.
In any case, I believe we had about 14 people that first year, and I remember sitting at the head of the table, undoubtedly with some vino mellowing my mood, looking at the scene, and smiling. I knew that I’d
finally gotten what I’d been missing all those years. While it was certainly no Norman Rockwell painting- not with the crazy crew I married into- it was, nonetheless, my family sitting down to feast together. I recall how truly thankful I was sitting there, my wife on one side of me, my Dad on the other, my brothers-in-law and
mother-in-law and grandmother and aunts, and finally…. finally feeling like I had a home.
Now, 2 houses and 17 Thanksgivings later, I still get the feeling of joyful anticipation in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. I look forward to one brother-in-law, Michael, flying in from Los Angeles to help in the preparations and to help me drive his sister, my wife Kate, crazy by mentioning all the possible disasters that could befall the holiday plans. By now, it’s just a running joke that she puts up with, repeating her mantra, “It’ll be fine,” like the veteran she now is. I look forward to my other brother-in-law David arriving on Wednesday, on which we celebrate Kids’ Night- no mothers, grandmothers or aunts- and have a dinner for David, whose birthday is during the week of Thanksgiving.
Thursday morning when I drag myself out of bed around 9, the house is usually a hub-bub of activity. Kate cutting giblets and making stuffing, Michael standing in the kitchen in his ratty plaid flannel night shirt
helping out (or getting in the way). David is usually out at the supermarket picking up some last minute item and probably getting some alone-time to call his bookie to lay down some last minute bet on one of the day’s football games. For the past two years, David has brought his girlfriend, June, who is entertaining Sarah, my 12 year old daughter in the playroom. My 15 year old son, Zac is doing what teenagers do at 9am- soundly sleeping despite the activity in the house.
Later in the morning, the dog starts barking to announce the arrival of my Dad. He always brings a few bags of appetizers from the deli near his house, some wine for me, and whatever items it’d been pre-arranged
for him to bring, usually though, twice as much as we’d asked for. He spends an hour or so catching up with David and Michael, retelling stories they’ve probably heard about 17 times by now.
By noon or one, my mother-in-law arrives with her world famous cranberry sauce. I say “world famous” as for many years, she refused to use sugar in her recipe. You see, my M.I.L. is a left wing health-food acetic,
and while it’s wonderfully admirable that she still. at the age of 70+ has the will and drive to bike 50 miles a week, this doesn’t help when it comes to eating cranberry sauce that’s so bitter it’ll turn you face inside out. After 10 years or so, she finally realized she’d been leaving my house with almost the same amount of cranberry sauce she’d arrived with, and that nobody was eating what she’d brought (we always had a bowl of the canned sauce as a back-up). So lately, she’s made two batches- one with no sugar, and one with barely enough sugar. Well, at least it now some of it gets eaten.
We still have the canned sauce though. Just in case.
Aunt Pat arrives soon afterward, having made the 2+ hour trek. Aunt Pat was my wife’s grandmother’s best friend, before she passed away 10 years or so ago. She is now my wife’s surrogate grandmother and she
always shows up with early Chanukah presents for the kids, and photos and trinkets from whatever exotic locale she’s been traveling to lately.
As the sun starts going down, Aunt Barbara, the insomniac, arrives, usually in time for us to sit down and eat at 4;30-5.
Kate calls me in to the kitchen to tell me it’s time to carve up the bird, which, so far, has always been perfect. I don’t “get” the whole deep-frying the turkey movement, or Turducken (hen in a duck in a turkey) thing. Or the beer can trick or standing the bird on it’s butt while cooking. In 18 years, we’ve never had a bad turkey. And it’s not like I spend $60 on a steroided Butterball monster either. I usually get an 18+lb free Shop-Rite frozen turkey, and no one has ever complained. It’ really just not that difficult. Why does everyone think
they have to reinvent the wheel? We only have a giant turkey but maybe twice a year. Could we really be tired of the same-ol’ same-ol’?
Of course, by the time we sit down and eat, no one is truly hungry, as we’ve been grazing all day on every sort of cheese, crackers and dips that the table meal is a formality. But the Thanksgiving table is The
Place I Feel I’m Home. We don’t do any sort of religious prayer of thanks or grace, but we do have a tradition of going around the table, sharing what we are each, individually thankful for. It is a nice time to take stock of the Good Things we have and express our appreciation for them.
The comes dessert! Pies and cakes and cookies and ice cream and coffee! Not that anyone’s still hungry, but hey, you gotta be polite, right?
Finally, the crowd disperses from he table- the kids back to the playroom for video games or TV. David to catch up on the 2nd football game. My dad to doze in the wing chair in the living room, and the rest
of us to attend to sundry clearing duties, except Barbara who usually sits at the table picking at leftovers.
By 7 or 8 Aunt Pat gets ready for her long drive home, and David and June soon thereafter, as June is one of those nuts who get up at 4am to be shopping on Black Friday before dawn. Followed shortly by the
others, so that by 9 or so, the house is (relatively) quiet. My dad stays overnight, for at 91 years old, he doesn’t like to drive at night (!). Next year will be different, as he’s moving in with us in a month
or so.
By 11, I’m on my couch, digesting the food and the events of the day, watching the tube.
I wonder to myself, if tomorrow, we’ll have pie for breakfast. I switch off the TV, head upstairs where I look in on my sleeping kids.
And as I settle in to bed, next to my wife, I take a deep breath, and I give Thanks.