This is actually something I shared last year, or the year before. I can’t remember which. In any event, it’s nice to reread and enjoy the memories of Thanksgivings past. Particularly this year, after the election and in the midst of high prices for travel, when we may not all be able to meet in person, share a meal, and enjoy family and friends, it’s important to reflect back on celebrations in our lives. All of us have tales of Thanksgivings that cause us to smile. I repost here some that are my favorites.
When we were young, it was our family tradition to go visit some friends of my parents for Thanksgiving, and they in turn would come to stay with us for Christmas. Jack and Berta Forbes were wonderful people that had no children and lived just outside of Boston, in Chestnut Hill. Not only would we go “over the river and through the woods” to their house on Thanksgiving Day, but my sister and I would stay with them during summer vacation. Jack, or “Uncle Icky” as we called him, and I would play golf – in fact it was he who taught me to play golf, while Aunt Berta and my sister would do something, I don’t know exactly what. Berta would take us to shows, plays, movies, and we’d have a grand time with them.
Berta made the traditional Thanksgiving dinner – I remember it spread out resplendently on the table. She always made a mincemeat pie for my father. He was, to my recollection, the only one in our immediate family group that liked it. Nobody else did. It was on Thanksgiving at their house that I developed my love of pumpkin pie. It was also special because Uncle Icky had a pool table in the basement. This was before they were commonly found in family game rooms, so it was a real treat. We’d also stop to visit one of my father’s childhood relatives. It was his step-father’s son, and, my father having no siblings, considered him a brother. That too was a ritual, like my great uncle growing flowers to put on the graves on Memorial Day, which Uncle Herb always called “Decoration Day”.
In the first few years of our wedded bliss, we’d have a double dinner. My mother-in-law, a wonderful lady, made a big dinner for early afternoon. We’d then go on to my parents for another family dinner, usually around 6. Even my robust appetite was taxed a bit. If you’re a fan of the Vicar of Dibley, and recall the episode where she’s invited to four Christmas luncheons and hasn’t the heart to refuse any of them, it was something like that. This was in the days when you’d stuff the turkey the night before, then put it in the oven to roast at, like, five o’clock in the morning. We did all the things that chefs and doctors now tell you is unsafe to do. My mother-in-law introduced Brussels sprouts one year because I’d mentioned in casual conversation that I liked them. God bless her – she’d make them just for me as nobody else would eat them. On a side note, she and my father-in-law would make more Christmas cookies than anyone else I ever knew outside a bakery. Their kitchen, just before the holidays would feature every countertop, every shelf, and every flat surface covered in all manner of cookies. They’d bake dozens and dozens of them. I fully expected one year to see cookies hanging from the ceiling. They’d give a fair number away – my mother-in-law was a nurse, and she was big on taking things to the clinic.
After she died, my father-in-law divided his time between Florida and New Hampshire, finally moving back to New Hampshire permanently in his later years. Susan’s sister and her husband hosted Thanksgiving dinner at their house. My father-in-law, I always called him Alfred – mentioned one year that there were no creamed onions. To quote, “Your mother always made creamed onions.” So, my sister-in-law promised to make them the next year. Around comes next year, and there they are, proudly sitting on the table as promised. Nobody touched them. Margaret told him pointedly that she’d made the creamed onions “like Mom’s” for him. It was then that he admitted he’d never particularly cared for creamed onions and would pass. There they sat in a place of prominence getting cold, while my sister-in-law gave him a look of daggers. Just the other day when she was over, I asked about the creamed onions and she laughed.
One of the great family traditions on Thanksgiving was to make a “cradle” of tin foil, overlapping each side, so that we could remove the bird easily when it was done and then make gravy in the roasting pan. It was always a test of our engineering skill to make sure the tin foil would hold. We got the heavy-duty, industrial tin foil so it wouldn’t break. I have no idea why we didn’t just get those turkey lifters, but we always seemed to rely on the fine folks at Reynolds. The first year we’d bought our house, we were hosting. It was our maiden foil wrap voyage, and, if you too are seeing ahead, there were not enough layers. The foil broke and the turkey slid across the kitchen floor, headed for the dining room. That was at least forty years ago, and to this day I can see that turkey moving like lightning, as if it was still alive and making a run for it. We picked it up, cleaned it up, and away we went. Don’t believe anyone at dinner that day knew what had happened, and we certainly weren’t saying a word. OK, we did admit it years later. In a similar vein, I remember Herself telling a tale from her best friend growing up. As the story goes, her friend Linda’s father had a few too many celebratory glasses of wine and was in no condition to carve the turkey. He placed it triumphantly in the table and announced, “Everybody just pick.”
Thanksgiving television episodes bring great remembrances of happy viewing. My personal favorite was the episode of “Mad About You”, when the dog eats the turkey, so Paul and Jamie keep trying to sneak a replacement in past the in-laws. They go through about six turkeys, and that is truly one of the funnier television episodes of all time, Thanksgiving or not. There are several episodes of Everyone Loves Raymondthat highlight the holiday. Two in particular always bring a smile when I see them. There is one where Debra is angry with Ray, not unusual. She’s buttering the turkey and it gets away from her. She’s chasing it all around the kitchen, finally getting it by the drumsticks and slings it into the oven, sans pan. The other was the year that Marie was going “healthy” and made a tofu turkey, with little paper drumsticks that wiggled hilariously when she puts it on the table. There was also a memorable Murphy Brown Thanksgiving episode where they’re helping out the kitchen of a homeless shelter. Murphy had ordered turkeys, not realizing they were live, which really weren’t best picked up in Myles’ BMW. And we still joke about “Grammy Dial’s cranberry / prune stuffing.” If you’re old enough, you might remember WKRP in Cincinnati’s classic Thanksgiving Promotion, when they drop the turkeys from a helicopter, landing as lethal projectiles into a parking lot. Arthur Carlson, the station manager’s famous statement at the end summed it up: “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.” TV has been memorable and quotable to Thanksgiving viewing over the years.
So many good times come flooding back as we again prepare for Thanksgiving. We’ll have two sets of stuffing, because the family’s traditional sausage stuffing, which we can no more do without than the creamed onions, sadly doesn’t agree with me. There are the endless controversies – jellied cranberry sauce versus, well, those whole cranberries. I like to thicken the gravy with corn starch, but Herself insists it has an aftertaste so I should use flour instead. Frozen versus fresh turkeys, and how big? The Princess wants it big so there will be lots left over. I’m trying a new vegetable – a creamed spinach that I clipped from a magazine and have field-tested – it came out pretty well. It’s always risky, as you know, to try something new in a family where food traditions are embedded like fossils. The Princess doesn’t like squash, so we won’t make a lot. But, then again, it’s a tradition. Who has Thanksgiving dinner without squash?
Warmest regards to everyone as you gather for the holiday. The parade from New York should be back, with the balloons and Santa, the marching bands, floats and performers that I don’t recognize. And our New England Patriots are playing Thursday night – an added benefit for Her Ladyship. I’m washing her lucky Patriots shirt even as I write this, so she’ll have it ready. It’s all part of the tradition.
I'm Thinking...No! 