The Thanksgiving Holiday: The Bad, The Good & The WishBone

I may be judged negatively by putting this on paper, but here it goes: Thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday. There, I said it.  It isn’t that I am not thankful or grateful. 

I am. Daily. 

I enjoy time with my family; the Lord knows I love food—especially the stuffing and cranberry relish.  And bring on the pies!  

It’s all the preparation, planning, stress, and plain old work several days ahead of the big meal. All the worry about whether there will be enough of this or that, whether so and so is bringing whatever they were supposed to, and if you will have enough food choices for everyone. You wake up at 3 am, questioning whether you have all the drinks on hand that everyone likes and whether the dining room chairs will hold up.  Will it even be possible to get that nasty stain out of the tablecloth from last year? 

Then there is the timing of the cooking.  It’s the one day of the year you wish you had a double oven. How do you keep the sweet potato casserole warm along with the green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and gravy?  What time do you need to get up in order to cook the turkey and free up the oven to cook or warm up the other dishes?  And don’t forget the rolls!  How many of the side dishes do I need to make ahead?  Do we have enough room in the refrigerator for everything?  Do we need extra containers? How can everything be ready at precisely 12 noon?  

Once everyone is corralled and the kids have their bibs in place, we all fill plates for ourselves, the children, and the elders. 

Then, after everyone at the table proclaims, one by one, what they are grateful for from the past year, the actual eating of this ginormous meal that consumed so many hours to prepare is devoured in about twenty minutes tops. 

After all the forks are rested, there are compliments on the favorite dish and the juiciness of the turkey. Everyone agrees to wait a few minutes before eating dessert, and then… it's over.

Crickets. 

Everyone retreats to the couches to watch football or talk and catch up on life.   

But wait, you aren’t finished yet.  The turkey carcass has to be stripped and thrown away without dripping half the juice on the floor. All the food, including desserts, must be divided so every family has a little to take home. In the meantime, you scrape uneaten food from the plates into the trash and load the dishwasher. 

This would also be a fine time to have two of those; there always needs to be more room in the dishwasher on Thanksgiving. Don’t forget your Grandmother’s plates with the gold trim that can’t go in there. The silverware drawer is empty, so you have to handwash some forks for the pie.  Your stomach is aching, and you wish you hadn’t sampled all that dressing for “breakfast.” Even so, you have every intention of eating pecan pie as soon as all this food is sorted out. 

Fade to black.

Breathe.

In my sixty-five years, not all Thanksgiving Holidays have been stressful.

I honestly don’t have a lot of specific memories of Thanksgiving, good or bad, when I was a kid, except for the year I turned fourteen. We were moving across the state of Illinois that long Thanksgiving weekend. My Dad was going to run a GM Dealership in a small town, and I was going from Junior High with friends I’d known since grade school to a High School where I knew no one. I was nervous and excited at the same time. Still, I thought of it as an adventure and was looking forward to the newness of it all.

When we arrived in our future town, we picked up some piping hot pizzas from the one restaurant not yet closed for the Holiday. At the time, I thought this would be the most memorable Thanksgiving meal ever, and I was right. 

As a child, I have flashes of memories of making paper turkeys with my hand prints in school. 

The Holidays were the only time of year we brought out the electric knife, which I always thought was a handy tool. Why didn’t we use it for a plain ‘ol rotisserie chicken? 

At home, there was a large dining room table where I looked forward to sitting next to my Grandmother. A fireplace was on one side, a large picture window overlooking a concrete deck, and the snowy woods on the other. Still, somehow, the room always seemed dark.

 I loved that old house with the deep corners my brother used to hide in and scare me as I walked by.  The bay window in the formal living room, the fireplaces,  the huge yard, the blackberries that grew in the woods. All of it.  I was more depressed to know I would never see our home again than I was to leave some of my friends.  But I digress.  

As I grew older, Thanksgiving meant making my Grandmother’s sausage meat stuffing recipe together. I was helping her chop or stir in her kitchen while standing on a stool, or as time went on, she was in my kitchen helping me. My Grandmother had a jadeite dish with a lid that perfectly held a can of jellied cranberry sauce that I still use every year, only now it holds orange cranberry relish. That jellied type was a little weird. 

My Dad,  Grandmother, and I were the only ones who preferred the dark meat on the turkey, so it was always a special honor to get a drumstick. Nowadays, I always save a drumstick for my son. 

I still have the white cardboard name place cards my son handmade and wrote our guests' names on for our Thanksgiving dinner when he was 8 or 9. 

I think of my Grandmother a lot, but most especially at Thanksgiving. Even if we have gone somewhere else for the Holiday or out to eat (we did that once or twice as an adult, I didn’t like the feeling. It was nice not having the cleanup or the hustle and bustle in the kitchen, but I missed the kitchen smells and leftovers.)  I still try to make her special dressing at least once a year. That’s one of my traditions. 

The most unique memory I have of Thanksgiving, though, is making a wish by breaking the wishbone. I don’t remember where it started, either my Dad or Grandmother, but every year, we would remove the wishbone from the back of the turkey and let it dry out for a couple of days. Usually, the following Sunday, before we went back to school, my brother and I would lightly hold the end of the wishbone,  close our eyes, make a wish, and pull. Whoever ended up with the larger piece of the bone got their wish.  

I kept up the tradition as the years went on, and now it is something my son & I do together.  (Secretly, I have always hoped he got the larger piece of the bone. I have had the intention that all of his wishes would come true from the day he was born.)

I hope that the wishbone tradition is something that my granddaughters carry on for years to come as well.

In writing this piece, I have criticized myself a few times.  Am I being ungrateful? Spoiled?  Unappreciative of all I have been given and downright unthankful?  After all, so many people in the world would be so happy for a small piece of turkey and sweet potato. So what if I spend a few hours planning, cooking, and cleaning up for just a few moments of family time at the table? 

It is all about those small memories that make you smile years later. The food is the least of it. 

While I clearly cannot predict what family and friends will remember about a Holiday or special occasion, what I can do is create the opening and opportunity for unique moments & memories to happen. 

I have two little granddaughters now, and I want to instill beautiful memories and traditions about the Holidays. I want them to remember the laughter at the table, the abundance of food, and the tradition of sharing our thankfulness for being together another year- and yes, that jadeite dish, meat stuffing, and most importantly, the wishbone wish. 

The last thing I want them to remember is a frazzled Grandma trying to ensure everything is perfect, warm, and ready on time. 

And with that thought, I wish all my readers, family & friends (perhaps you will also be readers in the New Year?)  a Happy Thanksgiving, warm memories with loved ones, and the pure joy of being together. 

(I’d also suggest you do your best to spend a little less time in the kitchen. 

After all, as Scarlett says, “tomorrow is another day.”  It’ll get done. One dishwasher load at a time.)

Keep reading! Keep smiling!  

xx