November 26, 2009

Thanksgiving 2009, we had five for dinner. It was going to be four, the nuclear family, mom, dad, sister, brother. At the last minute we added another teenager. It was easy. No tension. Low expectations. Turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and a green vegetable. Simple food, nothing elaborate.
I celebrated my first Thanksgiving in 1964 in Queens, NY, three weeks after my family emigrated from England. I don't remember it. It was, in all probability very, very tense. We were staying with my uncle and his family while my father looked for a job and a place for us to live. My mother did not like my aunt. There was a huge clash of will, personality, and expectations mostly because of cultural misunderstandings. My aunt was well meaning but my mother was hyper-sensitive and very homesick. The next Thanksgiving we were established in a home of our own and my father was earning a wage at his trade. We began to establish our own Thanksgiving traditions. Turkey with gravy and stuffing, yes. My mother could easily do that. Cranberry sauce she refused to adopt. Two years later I was away at college and began the tradition of travelling home for Thanksgiving. It is a short holiday. Which makes travel over any great distance arduous. Because you hit the road or the airport in a very small window of time with a great many other people often in some of the worst weather possible for long distance travel. I hadn't yet acquired a lot of emotions around eating turkey on one particular day but I had no desire to stay in empty dorms and a desperate need for a break from classes so it became a fixture for the next 4 years. Get a ride for the 300 mile trip from upstate NY to the southern tip of Long Island. The next 2 years were easy. I had a job on the Northern tip of LI, a car and no friends in the area. Naturally I went home to my family of origin.
By 1973 I was living and working in London, England. I didn't miss Thanksgiving but Christmas was tough. Like my mother before me, I wasn't comfortable with my new in-laws and they didn't much like me. It wasn't a problem for long. 1975 found my new British husband and I celebrating his first Thanksgiving in Madison, Wisconsin. We were back on the road again. Driving up North to have dinner with the family of one his new American friends. It was a big gathering and I remember feeling embarrassed when I was asked to say what I was thankful for. I couldn't think quickly enough with all those strange faces looking at me. It was a lovely traditional dinner. I was impressed with the grandeur of the table, the quantity of food and the large number of people present. It became, for me, a standard to aim for.
By 1978 we were living in Iowa. The next 2 years were strange. At holiday times all the native Iowans we knew went home to the farm. We were left to our own devices. All that changed in 1980 when we moved to Massachusetts. Now we were back in driving distance of my parents. Thanksgiving meant a ferry trip across the LI Sound. We were a married, but childless couple so we did the traveling. My parents were still hosting my younger siblings so Thanksgiving was a family re-union of sorts. There was never any discussion of where we go it was assumed we would join my parents. My mother was in charge of holiday celebrations. They succeeded or failed according to her mood and expectations.
It wasn't until I was in my early 30's that I began to think about this. There were other options. Thanksgiving celebrated with a group of un-related people. Friends, co-workers, strangers. It wasn't until I had children of my own that the holiday pivot point changed from my mother to myself. Thanksgiving became my show. Grandparents travelled to be with grandchildren. My sister, brother and I consulted and divvied up the job of celebrating with our parents. Travel, distance, age of children, health of parents all had to be factored in. Until it got to the stage where the grandparents were too old, too fragile to travel. Then it became a different calculation. How to take care of them. How to make sure they had a Thanksgiving celebration without unduly burdening them with either cooking or travel. The tussle between my mother and her daughters over who was going to prevail when it came to "staging" the dinner. Every year when I put the cranberry sauce on the table she would screw up her face and pronounce it disgusting because she didn't like ( had she ever tried?) cranberry sauce. The year I cooked the dinner following a Julia Child recipe and made an elaborate wine based gravy. My father ate with a long face because it wasn't the gravy my mother made.
Dad died 2 years ago. Mom is in assisted living. My children are now in their early 20's. Soon they will be debating whether they want to travel for Thanksgiving or spend it with their friends. The wheel keeps turning.