ready or not, Thanksgiving is here

I put my turkey in the oven at 2:00 so I can't really smell it roasting yet. And, no, I don't have the date wrong - we are having our turkey dinner tonight, on Wednesday, instead of tomorrow on Thanksgiving day proper. Last year, Ben and I were all alone for the holiday.  I still wanted to cook a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, even for just the two of us, but it just didn't seem all that festive.  I don't remember which of us proposed it now, but we decided to go out to a Thanksgiving buffet.

I made reservations at a restaurant in Baltimore, we got all dressed up, and drove into the city. It was a warm, sunny day, and we strolled along the inner harbor a bit before we ate.  It seemed strange to see no boats in the water on such a beautiful day. All enjoying their turkey, I guess, and we decided to do the same.  Well, Ben did, anyway.  I think I might have had a bit of everything except turkey from the buffet tables that were piled high with good things to eat.

I won't go into what we ate, but I will say that all of it tasted really good - well, except the raw oysters, which one should probably never eat from a buffet table.  It was so tasty, in fact, that when Julie and Andrew told us they would like to spend Thanksgiving with us this year, we proposed a return trip to the buffet.  Julie doesn't care for roast turkey, so she liked the idea right away, but Andrew, who is a big fan, had to be assured and re-assured that roast turkey and all the trimmings would definitely be on the menu.

So tonight we'll have turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy and cranberry sauce and corn and rolls, then we'll have pumpkin pie with whipped cream.  Then we'll either burst or have coronaries, I'm not sure which.   It won't be the same as Thanksgiving at Aunt Louise's house, or even in our house on Grove Avenue when Tom and Julie brought Kristy and Andrew home, and my dad and brother drove down from Elyria with Laura and her pies and photos, but it will be a holiday, all the same.  And we will celebrate it.  That's what families do.

over the river and through the woods

As I have mentioned before, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. When I was a kid, we used to go to my Aunt Louise's house. It was a big deal. I knew that because we all got new outfits. My mother would bake pies - pumpkin and pecan - contributions that would travel well, as we had the farthest to go.

As we drove along country roads, we passed an old stand-alone silo with "Fresh Cows" painted down the side of it. (Always a mystery to us kids, and I am still not exactly sure what it means.) We passed the prison farm, where on summer days we would sometimes see the inmates playing baseball or sitting on the bleachers cheering each other on. We saw cars pulled off the side of the road, and sometimes, we would see the hunters who had left them there heading out into the fields and woods. We drove through tiny crossroad towns with names that we loved: Erhart and Mallet Creek and River Styx.

My dad avoided the highways, so it took us a little longer than it might have, but when we finally arrived, we headed straight for the warm, fragrant kitchen. Aunt Louise would open the oven door so that we could see the huge turkey that seemed to fill the whole oven, already golden and glistening. I was instantly hungry, even though it was hours until dinner time. I still don't think anything compares with the aroma of a turkey or a chicken roasting in the oven.

As much as I loved the holiday meal, it was being with my extended family that made it a truly special day for me. We weren't a very big family, really. My widowed grandmother (my grandfather had died when my dad was only a child) my two aunts and their families, and the five of us. My dad was quite a bit younger than his sisters, so our cousins were all older than us. I just adored my older cousins, and they loved me right back. I hung on every word they said, and when I was very young I literally hung on them.

There wasn't enough room at the big oval table in the family room for all of us, so of course we sat at the kids' table. The problem with that was my brothers and I were the youngest kids, so it was just the three of us. It wasn't much fun to sit only with each other, as we did every day. One of our kind-hearted cousins, Butch or Greg, would come and sit with us, however, and I immediately felt included again.

It was dark and cold outside when we finally left, and sometimes my brother Bill would fall asleep on the way home, his head resting heavily on my shoulder. Truth to tell, sometimes I fell asleep, too. It's kind of funny. We spent our Thanksgivings there for maybe five years in a row - I don't know why we stopped going, I do know my aunts never liked my mother - but those five or so days are some of the best memories I have of my childhood.

I don't think my own kids have ever liked Thanksgiving all that well, and I am sorry for that, but it doesn't change how I feel about it. Everyone is on their way home to me today, and I couldn't be happier. I am glad we will celebrate the holiday here one last time before we move. It feels right to me.

working hard to make it work

Ben and I do our best to celebrate holidays, even when just the two of us are here. Our trip to the grocery store yesterday included lots of meat to grill out, pasta shells for a pasta salad, and some hard lemonade - just for fun. Our iced tea glasses last night had sprigs of fresh mint in them, and the salmon was grilled just right. I hope I remember that there is a whole watermelon chilling in the basement fridge. It's hard, though, to feel festive - or, as festive as we used to feel, anyway.

When Tom and Julie were little, Memorial Day always included the library book sale, and, of course, the Memorial Day Parade. The first time we took them to the parade, I don't think Julie was walking yet - so it was probably right before her first birthday - and I remember the cute sunbonnet she wore with little pink strawberries on it. We hated the loud noise of the fire trucks with their sirens blaring, but loved the Elyria High School Pioneer Marching Band, every year playing their fight song as they marched down Washington Avenue. The best years were those when Julie marched in the band. She always looked for us, and we were always there.

Everyone in town was at the library book sale, and it was a good place to catch up, as well as a great place to buy cheap used books - something we all loved. I remember the year Julie found books stuffed with old postcards from all over the world. She probably still has them...

After the parade, we usually headed to my dad's house for a cook-out. Bill worked quickly and efficiently, and always provided an incredible spread, with much more food than we could ever eat. I loved that he used the same spatula to flip the burgers that my dad used when we were kids. The years that Laura was there were always fun - she manged to fit right in with our little family, and we all loved her.

When we lived in Eastern Heights, someone in the neighborhood would get up early and put little American flags in every front yard on one street or another. Whoever was walking Bobo that morning had to restrain him from lifting his leg at each flag as we passed it. Not that we cared at all, but no point in needlessly offending the neighbors...

Now, of course, Tom and Kristy live in Chicago, and Julie and Andrew live in Maryland, and we haven't lived in Elyria for almost ten years. My dad lives at Wesleyan Village, and Bill lives in Cleveland Heights with Catherine. Ben and I will spend this Memorial Day at their house. I don't know that this is the start of a new tradition, but I do know we'll have a good time. And we won't even have to work hard at that.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

In the spirit of beginning the way I mean to go, I wanted to be sure and make my first post of 2008 today. I am delighted to say good-bye to December and to realize that I won't have to worry about Christmas again for about, oh, eleven months. That is not to say that I didn't have a wonderful Christmas, because I did. Julie was home, of course, and Tom and Kristy and the girls were here for almost a week. I was once again overwhelmed and humbled by the loving generosity of my family.

One of the presents I requested - and received - from Kristy was a knitting tutorial, along with a whole knitting kit that she put together for me and some really beautiful wool yarn. Those of you who have known me for a long time - say thirty years or so - know that I used to knit. I have had the urge for a while to take it up again, and so asked Kristy, who is a skilled and creative knitter, if she would help me do that. I had my first lesson a week ago on Christmas afternoon, and am delighted with my progress.

I managed to lose four pounds last month, for a total of twenty pounds over the last three months. I would not ordinarily be thrilled with that, but when I think that two of those three months were November and December, I will admit to being pleased. I feel like I have a head start on the usual January weight loss panic. It's a good feeling.

I hope you loyal readers have been hanging in there during this month-long hiatus. I don't make resolutions, but I will be posting more in the coming year - you can count on it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Upon reflection, I have found that the people who care about me are right, and that I do, indeed, have many things to be thankful for. Here are five of them:

1. A husband who has encouraged and supported me for the last four months, as I have healed and (hopefully) grown, without hardly ever asking me when I am going to look for another job.

2. A daughter who loves to be at home with us, and who helped me bake two pies, make cranberry sauce and stuffing for the turkey, and who has brought her fiance, whom I love like a son, into our family.

3. A son and daughter-in-law who are willing to load everything, plus two little dogs, into their car and travel at the busiest times of the year, to be with their families.

4. My dad and brother, who are always there to support me in every way I could possibly need, even when I let too much time go by between visits.

5. The good friends I made during five years of working a job that started out good and slowly turned toxic. I'm looking at you, Kristen and Cortney, Vince and Joany, Kathy and Sgt. Buckey.

Hm-m-m... I guess I could just say that I am thankful for family and good friends, but sometimes I think it's important to spell it out. I hope you all have as much to be thankful for as I do.

Thanksgiving: it used to be about family

Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday when I was growing up. We used to go to my Aunt Louise's house in Canton for our big family dinner. Aunt Louise was my dad's oldest sister, and she and her husband, Uncle Virgil had three children, my cousins Butch, Barbara and Greg. My Grandma Fischer, my Aunt Isabel and my cousin Dave, who all lived together, would be there, and sometimes Uncle Virgil's mother, Mrs. Smith, would join us, as well. Assorted dates and, eventually, spouses of my cousins were sometimes present; it seemed like there was always room at the big table set up in the family room.

My dad was a lot younger than his sisters, and so, of course, we were a lot younger than our cousins. We were the only ones who had left Canton, and, in addition to that, the rest of the family did not like my mother, so we really were the odd ones out. I don't know that either of my brothers liked going there as much as I did, but I loved it. I think I was too much like my mother for either of my aunts' liking, but I was the little princess my boy cousins doted on, and I loved them all right back. In my dad's family I was called "Anne Louise", sharing a family middle name with my cousin, Barbara and, later, her daughter, Chrissy. Being relegated to the kids' table wasn't so bad when at least one of our big cousins always sat with us.

When Ben and I were first married, we spent our Thanksgivings at his parents' house in South Euclid. I loved being there for my favorite holiday. His younger sisters, Liz and Laura, and his brother, Vic, still lived at home then. Later, after they were married, Laura would be there with her first husband, Al, and Liz's husband, Jim was there, as well. My mother-in-law makes the best stuffing in the world - my favorite part of the meal - and she always made enough for us all to have second and third helpings of that and everything else. (They are Italian, after all.) I thought we would always spend our Thanksgivings together that way.

We have been hosting Thanksgiving dinner since we moved to this house seven years ago. My dad and my brother always drive out, and when Bill was dating Laura, he used to bring her along. Tom and Julie were always home for the holiday, and I remember one year Andrew was here, as well, so we set up a "kids' table" for the three of them - probably the only time my kids were relegated there. It is a huge amount of work, but what a great feeling when it is all cleared away, the dishwasher loaded, and the turkey carcass simmering in a stockpot.

This year, Tom and Kristy are in Oklahoma with her family, and my dad and Bill don't want to make the drive. I'm not sure yet whether Andrew will eat here or with his family. Chances are it will be Ben, Julie, and me for dinner. I never imagined our Thanksgivings ending up like this. Well, the food will still be good, even though I never did learn how to make stuffing like my mother-in-law.