The best holiday

Thanksgiving is, without doubt, my favorite holiday.

It's so non-commercial. It transcends any particular religion. It exalts family and friends and togetherness. It began out of a tradition of sharing and helping each other out. And it has really good food associated with it. What's not to like?

So, after last night's 'research' watching the film Lucy Gordon sent me starring 'the male coming up on Monday' (which was very interesting, indeed and yes, Lucy, he does indeed strip well), I've managed to write a few words. But tomorrow is Thanksgiving here and the male on Monday is going to have to wait while I throw myself headlong into preparations for Thanksgiving.

So far this means I've made four loaves of pumpkin bread (two with cranberries, two without), have put together my mother's traditional lime jello salad (it's not really a salad, but if you serve it on lettuce, you can pretend it is), have made enough cranberry sauce to feed the Russian army, have washed the serving dishes, and am in the process of wrapping Christmas presents. No, we don't have Christmas on Thanksgiving. But I have to wrap the presents - they're stacked on the dining room table. We can't eat unless I get them off there.

It's going to be a small group tomorrow. Somewhere between 5-9 people, depending on who shows up. Most of our kids live too far away to make the trip, especially if some of them are coming this way at Christmas. It doesn't matter. They're here in spirit -- and other people are here to enjoy the food and the company and the tradition and the memories.

When I was a kid we had Thanksgiving at my grandparents' house every year. It would have been an 'over the river and through the woods' experience, except we were living in Southern California and they lived five miles away over the railroad tracks and through the suburbs. Still, it was fun. The food was great. The conversations were absolutely predictable. My uncle George always asked why we weren't having rutabagas. My dad always commented on how moist the turkey dressing was. My aunt Martha always lost her brandy flask and sent us kids looking for it. And my grandmother always scalded all the dishes -- and very nearly us -- when she was rinsing them after she'd washed them after the meal.

I remember it all -- and I've done my best to recreate the joy of it for years. I discovered a number of years ago that you don't actually need to wait until the fourth Thursday in November to do it. The Canadians, for example, do it in October. And we did it in October one year, too.

One of our sons has not been able to be here for Thanksgiving in fifteen years. But one autumn he was here for a week at the same time my aunt and cousin were visiting. This is the aunt who cooked the turkey every Christmas, the one who made fantastic (very moist) dressing, and didn't possess a brandy flask. She loved the holiday as much as I did.
And so while they were here, we had Thanksgiving. It was the third week in October. It could have been the third week in June. What mattered was the spirit, the ritual, the food, the sharing. It was, I think, one of the best Thanksgivings I've ever had. I remember them all fondly, but that one, perhaps, more than all the others because it wasn't dictated by time, but by our hearts.