MUSINGS
By Regena Handy
I like Thanksgiving. Tucked right between Halloween, which I don’t care a thing about these days with all the ghoulish décor that is popular, and Christmas which I love, but is far too commercialized, it is the perfect holiday.
Thanksgiving is all about two of my favorite things—family and eating, my enthusiasm for the latter being quite obvious.
Celebrating Thanksgiving with a big turkey feast was not always an annual tradition in my part of the world. Actually, “back in the day” as people like to say, it could just as well be hog-killing day.
The temperature plays a big role in deciding when to harvest pork and late November is usually perfect timing. Often it was a time to deer hunt. Sometimes it was the day to cut a winter’s supply of firewood. I remember once as a child spending an unseasonably warm day pulling ears of field corn grown to feed the horses.
Nevertheless, it was always a family time. Whether it was a work day or the customary feast it eventually morphed into, it was an occasion for being together. And as is so often the case, specific family traditions were born over time.
Included in those rituals was the required, tried-and-true Thanksgiving dinner menu. With my boys, must haves were turkey, gravy, Grandma’s (and only Grandma’s) mashed potatoes, lots and lots of brown and serve rolls, and stuffing-from-the-box. Oh, yeah, and deviled eggs. That was expected with any big meal.
Woe to the cook who decides to change the menu as was the case a few years ago of an extended family member. The kids were adults, in college or on their own, and coming home for Thanksgiving dinner, as normal. The mother decided it would be nice to have an elegant, gourmet, a grown-up meal, if you will, and spent a good deal of time and money on its preparation.
The younger people sat down at the elaborately arranged table and promptly asked “where are the green beans with the onion fries on top … the sweet potatoes with little marshmallows … the round cranberry slices from the can?”
For many years, my sister-in-law and I have traded off hosting Thanksgiving dinner. This year is our turn. So, hopefully, when we all sit down together on Thursday afternoon, there will be at least 16 of us, the adults at the dining table, the almost-adults and younger children at folding tables in the living room. A football game will be on the TV with the sound muted during dinner. My husband will say the blessing over the meal and it will be heartfelt and sincere. Our little house will be crowded and noisy … and joyous.
No doubt at least one dish will never make it from the ‘fridge to the table, only to be found afterwards by someone who will call out “we forgot the Jell-O salad”, or some such. Without question, we will all eat too much and groan about it while reaching for another piece of pumpkin pie.
We will laugh around the ache in our hearts as we remember other times, the shadows of loved ones no longer with us hovering in the room. And all the while, we will be thankful for the family and friends with which we are still blessed, and for this day of thanksgiving that allows us all to come together.
