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my family always had two holidays
My family always had two holidays: Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sure, my parents paid some lip service to Easter, and allowed my grandmother to take me to Easter services and run around looking for Easter eggs. On the Fourth of July we would turn our sunburned faces up to the fireworks like all right-minded Americans. But there were only two holidays that were worth speaking of: Thanksgiving and Christmas. They were the holidays that we actually would make plans for. They were the "destination events" of my childhood.
Thanksgiving, in particular, had more of a ritual about it than anything that my parents ever did. It may have been more religious than anything else we did, not that they would ever admit such a thing. Around noon on Thanksgiving Day, we would all choose some appropriate semiformal dress. (Thanksgiving was one of perhaps two days a year on which I would accede to wearing a collared shirt.) In the early afternoon we would head out into the low autumn afternoon sun to my aunt Denise's house in central New Jersey. There, my parents would begin catching up boisterously with the 40 or 50 cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews in attendance while I went for a round of touch tag in the fallen leaves in the yard with the other 11- and 12-year-olds.
The meal itself was a mythical thing, of course: at least one monstrous turkey and usually two, accompanied by the classic mashed potatoes, stuffing, and rivers of gravy. There was usually succotash and creamed onions, and always a cavernous bowl of sweet potato pie covered with crisped melted marshmallows. There also was generally one pie for roughly every two people at the meal. I could never make it through this meal without loosening my belt and, usually, my pants as well.
The food is the thing we all remember, of course, but for me there is more, so much more, under the surface. Denise's was where one of the older cousins would always find me huddled in the corner with a book and draw me out by chatting about science fiction. It was where Ellen first asked my parents if anyone had ever tried to live in our Nantucket house over the winter, and by doing so, gave them the idea to insulate the place and make it possible for us to try to move there. It was where I would sit on the couch and listen to stories about how my mother and her cousins, as adolescent hellions, would get bored and find ways to terrorize their summer neighbors.
To me, Thanksgiving is family. It was where I saw my family and where I left them, every year, and it is now the place I await in the fall, so that I can bring my spouse and my children there too.
This year is my year to give thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
razil and blivious; to moominmolly and dilletante, to nitouche and her beloved, to entrope and concrete; to creidylad and mr_niggle; to hawkegirl; to everyone else who is a parent, who is a parent of a parent or who is a child of someone's parents.
You are my homies. You know where it's at, and I thank you all.
Thanksgiving, in particular, had more of a ritual about it than anything that my parents ever did. It may have been more religious than anything else we did, not that they would ever admit such a thing. Around noon on Thanksgiving Day, we would all choose some appropriate semiformal dress. (Thanksgiving was one of perhaps two days a year on which I would accede to wearing a collared shirt.) In the early afternoon we would head out into the low autumn afternoon sun to my aunt Denise's house in central New Jersey. There, my parents would begin catching up boisterously with the 40 or 50 cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews in attendance while I went for a round of touch tag in the fallen leaves in the yard with the other 11- and 12-year-olds.
The meal itself was a mythical thing, of course: at least one monstrous turkey and usually two, accompanied by the classic mashed potatoes, stuffing, and rivers of gravy. There was usually succotash and creamed onions, and always a cavernous bowl of sweet potato pie covered with crisped melted marshmallows. There also was generally one pie for roughly every two people at the meal. I could never make it through this meal without loosening my belt and, usually, my pants as well.
The food is the thing we all remember, of course, but for me there is more, so much more, under the surface. Denise's was where one of the older cousins would always find me huddled in the corner with a book and draw me out by chatting about science fiction. It was where Ellen first asked my parents if anyone had ever tried to live in our Nantucket house over the winter, and by doing so, gave them the idea to insulate the place and make it possible for us to try to move there. It was where I would sit on the couch and listen to stories about how my mother and her cousins, as adolescent hellions, would get bored and find ways to terrorize their summer neighbors.
To me, Thanksgiving is family. It was where I saw my family and where I left them, every year, and it is now the place I await in the fall, so that I can bring my spouse and my children there too.
This year is my year to give thanks to
razil and blivious; to moominmolly and dilletante, to nitouche and her beloved, to entrope and concrete; to creidylad and mr_niggle; to hawkegirl; to everyone else who is a parent, who is a parent of a parent or who is a child of someone's parents.You are my homies. You know where it's at, and I thank you all.
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I asked Ilana what she was thankful for, and she said "everything." Cute? Maybe. I personally think it was a cop-out, but whatever!
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It's a good day. May yours be filled with joy.
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