Bad, Really Bad Thanksgivings
Bad, Really Bad Thanksgivings
I’m as traditional and nostalgic as anyone, and a damn fine cook. But even though l love setting a beautiful table, and making Thanksgiving dinner, my Thanksgivings have been a series of unpleasant experiences. When I think back, this is what I remember:
● I was a child at my grandmother’s house in Minnesota. The uncles hung out in the living room, watching TV. The aunts worked in the overheated kitchen. My mom and dad both came from families of seven, so there were lots of aunts and uncles and cousins, only one of whom went to prison, later, for killing his stepfather. The Thanksgiving meal was served, with all of its strangeness: green and black olives, or that odd cylinder of cranberry. Dinner over, the Canadian Club whiskey would come out so the men could relax. The women cleaned up as my uncles, red-faced and swearing, played poker at the kitchen table. They were loud and scary and we were devout Methodists, who didn’t believe in drinking, smoking, gambling, dancing or going to see movies (except The Ten Commandments). The aunts, armed with leftovers and sleepy children, had to drag the men away. Result: Fear of drunken uncles, fear of drunks.
● I was older, a teenager, and I helped my mother at her grocery store, open seven days a week, 12 hours a day, except for Christmas Day. We closed on Thanksgiving, too, but only between noon and four. Thanksgiving meant racing back and forth between the store and the house, tending the turkey, making sure the house hadn’t burned down. My half-brother, brother, uncle, dad, mom and I would eat around 3. Then we’d race back and open the store, so other people could get ice cream, sugar, pickled herring, coffee, pies, Tampax... whatever it was all those Scandinavians needed for Thanksgiving. Result: Class resentment.
● I was in college. I dreaded this Thanksgiving, but drove anyhow from Minneapolis to my parents up north. As we sat down to dinner, the topic of conversation turned to my cousin Linda, who was still in high school in South Dakota, and who had locked herself in the bathroom and given birth in the bathtub, and how no one knew she was pregnant, and how could she keep something like that from her parents? The Linda sitting at the table (me) was silent. I looked across the table at my father, looked at my uncle, who lived with us, my brother, my mother. They didn’t know that I was, in fact, pregnant at that very moment, and planning on having an abortion, without telling them. Result: Hypocrisy and shame.
● I was living in New York, in the East Village, and didn’t know a soul. For Thanksgiving I roasted a chicken and split it down the middle. Half of it I deboned and fed to my Afghan hound, Pamplemousse. I parceled the rest out into foil-wrapped packages so I could eat chicken and green beans for the week while I worked fulltime and went to college at night. I didn’t own a TV, so I couldn’t even watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Result: Self-pity.
● I was married. No more Thanksgivings alone! Instead my husband and I drove, in heavy traffic, for hours to get to his parents’ home. I had a difficult and crabby sister-in-law, a nice but sleepy father-in-law and an imperious mother-in-law. My father-in-law drank two Manhattans before dinner, and dozed off. My mother-in-law let her maid go after she put Thanksgiving dinner into the oven. I pictured turkey and stuffing being kept warm. At the Thanksgiving table we were served not turkey but fish-kabobs. Overcooked, dry-as-sawdust, fish-kabobs. And sweet potatoes, topped with gobs of melted marshmallows. Result: Disappointment and awareness that family could be over-rated.
● I was divorced, and no, it wasn’t the fish-kabobs. My father was dead, my mom living alone, except for my malingering brother in the basement. My half-brother, another malingerer, lived on Skid Row in St. Paul and wouldn’t be coming home for Thanksgiving, or pretty much, ever again. I drove from New York to Minnesota with my beautiful, young son. I was now a single mother. There were only four of us for the holiday, one of whom was a child, but my mom cooked a huge turkey, fussed over the dressing (was there too much sage?), plopped the canned cranberry stuff onto a plate, and put the olives on the relish tray. I turned to making the apple pie, which I constructed with all the love in my heart. I serve the pie after dinner, but my mother said she couldn’t have any. She was too full, she said. Result: Pain, rejection.
● My son was a few years older. We were having Thanksgiving with a friend who believed her marriage was sound, and who would be divorced within the year. We sat down to eat, two moms and three sweet-faced children. Before we ate, we turned on a video camera and went around the table saying what we were thankful for. Everything was fine until the camera was turned on my son. He refused to speak. He turned away. He said he won’t say. He burst into tears. He slid under the table. It’s all there on videotape. Result: Embarrassment and failure. (Sorry Jill, it doesn’t work for everyone.)
● My son was grown and has a girlfriend. But she comes from a huge family in Pennsylvania, and Thanksgiving is their holiday. Christmas is their holiday too. So is Easter. So I’ve lost his. This year once again I won’t be with him for Thanksgiving.
● So here I am in Miami. My Martha Stewart roasting pan and Macy’s Thanksgiving platter, my champagne glasses, my made-from-scratch cranberry relish will not make an appearance this year. Result: I’m fine.
In the last year I lost a prestigious job, found out I had cancer, and saw my Miami house enter the foreclosure process. But this will be a good Thanksgiving. I really believe it, because I am an optimist.
I’m sure I’ll find another job (with health care!). I had surgery, and the doctors say everything should be OK! And lots of other people around me have houses in foreclosure.
I still enjoy Thanksgiving. My mother and father are no longer with me. I don’t have to drive to Minnesota. In Miami the sun is shining and the grapefruit on my tree are ripening. No one has thrown me out of my home (yet).
It looks like I’ll be spending Thanksgiving with friends. By request I’m going to make a pecan pie, my first. But I’m sure these good people will eat my pecan pie, and tell me it’s delicious. Even if it isn’t.
And they will thank me for it.
Comments
Post new comment