Thanksgiving

The one day a year it felt like it was okay to “break all the rules.”

How eating this day, was like no other.

We were coached to save our appetites and not fill up on appetizers. Encouraged to take a second helping. Encouraged to have pie and ice cream. Convinced we were hungry again, as we broke out the home made dinner rolls,  along with all the left overs we had put away just a few hours earlier.

An entire day based on food.

The memories of my family around the holidays are vivid and Thanksgiving especially. How my Grandmother’s house was the hub for my Mom’s side of the family. Probably at times close to 25 of us for turkey dinner. The intense days leading up to this eating frenzy. The planning, the cleaning of the house to make it presentable. I wish I could elaborate on what this meant, but maybe I’ll just say my grandparents may have had a slight hoarding problem going on, but we didn’t have a label for it back in the day.  

Then the glorious morning arrived and the stress in the kitchen was real. From my house, to my Grandmothers, to my Great Grandmothers house. Every kitchen was a ball of nerves and I remember feeling “Oh my gawwwwd why is everyone freaking out? This isn’t fun at all, why do we even do this?! Each person responsible for bringing something, making sure they had enough for everyone,  serve it hot enough and speaking of that, holy cow, for the love of life, if you’ve been called to the table, go immediately. Do not make them call you a second time because “Everything’s getting cold!!” followed up with “Please pass the gravy I’m trying to keep my food warm!!”

The feel of the house, the “energy” in the room, did NOT match what the day was suppose to be about. I didn’t get that feel good excitement feeling you get when you’re looking forward to something. Instead, it oozed of “There’s so much to do!!!Dust this, wash that, fold those, prepare this, who’s bringing what? Don’t mention this, don’t talk about that, be on your best behavior.” Like all of us, the adults too, had to be reminded to be on their best behavior. These small droplets of stress spread out to big waves of emotion throughout my entire family until the first “guest” arrived, the spiked punch was served and we all sat down to eat. It was then and only then, when the plates were full, Grace was said and we could all dive in that joy, gratitude and finally peace arrived. It was then that my family began to relax as they passed the side dishes, piled their plates high and began talking, sharing and laughing with their mouths full, food spitting out and down their shirts, as someone (as in my grandmother, sitting closest to the kitchen) ran for club soda to get the stain out, that I can now look back and see how insane this day really was.

Insane in the sense of we would normally not stress over dinner like this, talk with our mouths full, or talk while someone else was talking. But not on this day, on this day, it felt like a free for all! Anything goes!

So as Thanksgiving approaches and a lot of my family has passed away, the dinner has changed a bit. We’re smaller now and it’s just my immediate family. No Great Grandmother telling me stories about the dance she met my Great Grandfather at or how she had learned how to drive a horse and buggy because the automobile wasn’t even manufactured yet. No Great Aunt’s dodging the question of how old they really were or to tell stories about each other, only to get one upset because they weren’t telling it right. Just my small, intimate family that live near by. How even though we are small and it’s more casual now I still, I still have triggers this week like little bombs going off inside of me, sending me into an anticipated, unnecessary, but uncontrollable worry.

But all this being said, all of this, I have to believe every family was like mine, close to it, or I’m sure much, much worse.

Maybe one year I’ll convince everyone to go out on Thanksgiving like some families do. Maybe one year we go for Chinese food or we make it easy and go Italian style with say a lasagna, some garlic bread and a big salad instead of the traditional turkey dinner. But how much ya’ wanna bet if we did that, that I would be the one stressing everyone out because we did Thanksgiving “wrong.”

So, maybe just writing about it will help me sort out the memories around this holiday and allow me to just embrace the day and the fact that it may be a little stressful, I will over eat, and at some point I’m sure I’ll be internally telling myself “to behave” and just say….

“Of course I’ll have seconds and pass the gravy, I’m trying to keep my food warm.”