Today, a typical grey and dreary November day, I piled all my Thanksgiving decorations and do-dads on the dining room table in preparation for a trip to the attic to exchange them for Christmas decor. As I looked at them I was sobered by the thought of how many Thanksgivings I had seen. Sixty-seven. Ouch. That's a lot of years of living. I used to think people of that age were really pretty much dinosaurs.
Thanksgiving is a consistent holiday. It always falls on the 4th Thursday of November. Here in the northeast the trees will always be drab and colorless, having dropped the last of their leaves several weeks before. By 5pm it will be dark and the house inside will feel cozy and warm as you sit around the candlelit table. You almost always will serve turkey. And stuffing. And apple pie or pumpkin pie. That's just tradition.
Consistent yes. But within your own family it can be so consistently inconsistent. As a young child it was very consistent. Every Thanksgiving my parents would pack us in the old car that my father sometimes needed to start with a crank. We would bounce up and down in our seats in synchronization to his up and down movements as he rotated the crank around and around to get the engine going. Then we would make our way from our old farmhouse with no central heat to the beautiful Victorian home in Lakeville where my mother was brought up by her second cousins, who we always referred to as Auntie Mary and Auntie Margaret.
The table was always set perfectly with a white linen tablecloth and napkins, real silver cutlery, matching china and little salt cellars that fascinated me. There was always a little glass of tomato juice on each plate to start off the meal. No wine. No cocktails. The only alcohol of any kind besides rubbing alcohol that was in the house was a teeny tiny bottle of whiskey in the top shelf in the butler's pantry that was labeled "for medicinal purposes ONLY". My aunt Margaret would always place a riddle, or a conundrum as she called it, at each plate and before the meal began we each had to read and answer our "conundrum". There was always a succulent and rich smelling turkey and mashed potatoes. There were creamed onions which had a sprinkling of paprika that I eyed very suspiciously and refused to eat until one of my aunts told me it was only for color, there was no flavor. I bought it. I really did. It wasn't until I was in my 30's and reading a recipe that I realized that paprika is really a seasoning. They must have felt so smug about THAT one!
Everything was always wonderfully consistent on those Thanksgivings. The home was serene and calm. There were always the same guests. Our family and Cousin Clara, an older member of the family who I never quite figured out how she fit in. One year everyone in the family had the mumps except for me so I went alone with my mother. My consistent little life was upset and it didn't feel right.
The death of Auntie Mary and Auntie Margaret before I entered my teens ended our Thanksgivings at this Victorian haven. I was growing up and starting to realize that life just didn't stay the same, no matter how much you wished that it would.
Thanksgiving was now always held at our farm. My mother, being the benevolent soul that she was, would somehow manage to find someone who was alone on Thanksgiving and invite them to share the meal with us. We have had a few odd characters share our Thanksgiving table. A couple of times my mother decided to have a "sacrificial meal". We would have soup and she would donate the money that would have gone for our meal to a needy cause. Not the most popular idea for teen-agers but we loved her for her generous spirit.
My parents got divorced when I was in college and Thanksgiving continued it's inconsistent ways. The first year my father invited us to the farmhouse for a dinner he cooked himself. I think he was missing the feel of the family together on the farm. I think that also there was something inside of him that was hoping this reuniting of the family on the farm would make my mother want to move back.
Marriages happened and things kept changing. Paul and I moved to Ithaca and invited the family for Thanksgiving. We moved tables into the dim basement of our very tiny basement apartment in Ithaca. Yeah, I think it was a little creepy out there with the cob webs and the laundry hanging from the ceiling but no one noticed.
I very nervously cooked my very first turkey, with Paul's help. That was before I knew that he had NO cooking skills whatsoever. But we were newly weds and I just liked an excuse to have him near me.
Soon it was more marriages and babies. So many marriages. So many babies. So much moving around. All those inconsistencies. We had Thanksgiving at my sister Ellens' where we ogled my brother Henry's new baby Sam.
We would move around. Sometimes we would travel to the Cortesi side of the family. It was a whole different set of in-laws. A whole new set of cousins for everyone to play with.
Sometimes Thanksgiving would simply follow the ups and downs of life.....like the Thanksgiving I found out that the unborn child I was carrying and had loved for seven months had somehow failed to survive. The support of my family, on both sides, was what carried me through that difficult Thanksgiving holiday.
When we built our forever house, the house I fell in love with, we started having family gatherings here. Sometimes smallish.
Sometimes at my sister Liz's when my mother was still living. Such happy days!
Paul and I spent one Thanksgiving sharing a Thanksgiving meal with my mother in the dining hall at the nursing home the year before she passed away. Our last Thanksgiving with her.
So many Thanksgivings. So many changes. Such inconsistency. But the one constant in all this is family. All our Thanksgivings have been about spending the day with family, that one group of people you feel most comfortable with. It's a time to laugh, argue if you want, share stories, talk about "remember when", sing, play some music, take a walk together. Be thankful they are in your life. And if you have no family invite other folks over who have no family. Because, after all, Thanksgiving is not only about family but about people. It's about sharing. That is the constant on this day. Sharing yourselves with other people. That is what life is all about. And it gives you more "remember when" stories for next year!
