Holiday memories not in the scrapbook

A turkey saying hello to another turkey.

So, here in the states, one month before Christmas day (roughly), the last Thursday of November, we celebrate our second biggest holiday, Thanksgiving.

Above, is the president, doing the annual White House tradition, of "pardoning" a thanksgiving turkey...it will never be slaughtered for food. Is is me, or is there something ironic in worrying about the life of a turkey, but thinking nothing of the loss of the lives of civilans and soldiers overseas.Crazy Americans.

We sometimes had good TG hols at our house, growing up. No fights, the turkey came out okay, everything calm. Dad reading his paper and sleeping in, sis doing...whatever sis did..with her, one never knew--usually she stayed at the boyfriends or husband's (depending on the year) place, until dinner time rolled around, then she'd breeze in, eat and leave. Mum would be tending to the turkey and "fixin's," in-between watching the parades and movies with me. Some year's we'd go out to dinner, at a hotel or somewhere, instead.

I remember the year I talked mum into making pheasant. On the way to high school (in a town 45 minutes away), there was a pheasant farm--man...that was good! Only time we ever had domestic pheasant (wild pheasant sometimes leaves something to be desired)...it was considered by all, to be quite possibly the best dinner we'd ever had, that year. Another time, mum bought a new brand of turkey--they'd sold out of her usual brand--and she fussed and worried about the quality--but, it came out absolutely perfect, and mum beamed all through dinner.

The food almost always was the same on our table--dad positively hated change...mum had to buy the same food every week--even the same bath soap and bathroom tissue, or dad would kick a fuss. So, usually, with the exception of the pheasant--and I think one year we tried duck (not a good idea)..the side dishes and appetizers seldom changed: various cheeses and crackers, green olives and sliced pickles, shrimp cocktail, fruit cocktail and/or orange juice, milk, homemade sage bread stuffing that was cooked in the turkey, peas with pearl onions, fresh carrots--later replaced by broccoli with cheese sauce, tinned gravy, cranberry sauce (jelly), hot Friehoffers "brown and serve" rolls with butter...followed by pumpkin or apple pie and maybe coffee...or some years, ice cream, or both. This menu hardly ever changed, until after dad left in '82.

Then, there's the memories one might not find in the old Norman Rockwell-ish mental scrapbook...

Yeah...the good old, "Oh my God, the turkey's still frozen!" years:
Mum and I taking turns...holding up a naked pimply turkey by it's legs in the kitchen sink, running hot water down the neck and watching
the bloody water pour through the aforementioned naked turkey's bum, down the drain below. That was fun. Usually took an hour or more...depending on how frozen Mr. Naked Turkey actually was.

The year dad, for some reason only dad ever knew, decided to take us to Bob's Diner (a little diner next to the railroad tracks in the neighbouring city of Watervilet, NY) Oh yeah...what a lovely holiday dinner that was--lumpy gravy, luke warm turkey, out of all the good side dishes, nothing left but mushy luke warm peas---and really lousy service..the pie was rather good though, as I recall. However the food poisoning wasn't too well received, the next day.

Then, there's the year, back in the mid-80's, when mum and I traveled the 15 or 20 miles to my siter's place--we'd been invited to dinner for the very first time ever...and got there--and no one answered the door. We wound up having to track down a pay phone and calling her--seems she and hubby fell asleep on the sofa, stoned out on the drug of the day, whatever that was--and burned the turkey to a blackened crisp...we ate it anyway. Sawed through the bread stuffing...I couldn't eat the veg, as sis totally forgot my loathing for anything having to even remotely to do with mushrooms--and coated the green beans in cream of mushroom soup. When she carved--or rather hack-sawed the turkey--it practically exploded...no, really.

Back in the late 90's, I had sis and her boyfriend dujour over for dinner--I went to great pains to use my cooking school lessons, and prepared a genuine Virgina baked ham--from a 100 year old recipe...took hours and hours to prepare...plus homemade bread and fresh veggies galore. Started cooking at 6 am, was still at it past three. So there I was, after spending hours slaving away at this tedious task of slow roasting and sugar coating a ham...and all that other stuff...oh I was so proud of myself--a resturant quality dinner just for my family! So, a quarter to 4 in the afternoon, everyone sits down...I'm standing carving the ham and putting all the side dishes in their proper containers and plates and handing them to mum...I turn around...the food's gone! My sister and her husband and my nephew..demolished my lovely dinner, before I even had a chance to sit down and say grace! I was devistated...but didn't allow it to show--but the next time she came for dinner--nothing went on the table until I was good and ready to sit down!

Last year, sis remembered--literally the night before, to invite me to Thanksgiving dinner--they don't celebrate Christmas, but they do Thanksgiving--sis really leaves me clueless, sometimes. Anyway, we're on the phone, discussing who's going to pay the funeral home or something like that--and she says, "Oh--are you going out for turkey day?" I told her no, I couldn't afford it, that I was just going to have a sandwich or something...mum had only been buried the week before, so I wasn't keen on cooking a big dinner just for myself. So, sis says, "Ummm--I guess you could come here, if you want." Big warm invite, that--sis always did have a way with words. Anyway, gist of it is..it was a typical Thanksgiving--we had a blizzard. Usually does rain or snow on TG day. And sis lives on the very top of a mountain, next to the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont...a long trek down backroads to get there...after the 2 to 3 hour drive to the southern city of Bennington, Vermont, from my Adirondack home.

So, Thanksgiving is, for me, like A Tale of Two Cities--or, in this case, two holiday dinners..."It was the best of times, and the worst of times..."