50th Post Celebration: Thanksgiving

When my family and our two best friend-families started the Thanksgiving tradition that we continue to this day, I was small enough to fit in a turkey pan. So were my best friend Zac and my brother Brandon. I know this because we took turns getting into the pan that year and using it to "sled" down a dirt hill. We did this while our parents pulled each other around on a flatbed wagon. The other child in our group, "Little Rebecca," was too small for the turkey pan. She was a bald-headed baby. But later, she was in whatever we were in. Unless we kept her out. The year we jumped off the balcony in our cabin onto couches below, for example, we deemed Rebecca too small for the activity. In retaliation, she promptly told on us as soon as our parents walked through the door from their hike.

Around the year of the turkey pan sledding, or maybe the next, our turkey took an exceptionally long time to cook because of some oven malfunction we cannot recall. In the video from that year, which was taken with my dad's ancient and enormous camera that he fixed to a tripod and aimed at the table, we are never all sitting down at the table at once. We are constantly in motion. Some of us are peering into the oven to check on the turkey (which was ready for sandwiches the next day). Others are jumping up for butter or more forks or a serving spoon. We look like some Vaudeville act: the moms with their '80s hair-dos feathered and fluffed; the dads with their '80s sweatpants with elastic ankles; the kids in our gigantic '80s t-shirts, and all of us laughing and chattering and never finishing a single thought or conversation.

One year Zac's mom made him try squash and he threw it up onto his plate while we all watched in horror. One year Rebecca's mom twisted her ankle while we played tennis. Another year her cold turned into pneumonia because our cabin didn't have heat. One year my dad busted his knee open on a rock in our football game, and then, to show that he was fine, bent and extended it a few times only to bust it open further, which caused my brother to nearly pass out (my dad was not fine--he required dozens of stitches).

A few years ago, Brandon hosted Thanksgiving. On the night before the Big Meal, we had a light dinner of fried catfish and french fries. While my brother and Zac manned the fryer, Tiffany and I prepped some pies in the kitchen. The grandmothers--then both 85-years-old-- and Tiffany's mom Patty sat on the couch in front of a crackling fire watching The Polar Express. When someone mentioned that it was warm in the house, I helpfully turned on the attic fan, which sucked the smoke and ash that had been going out of the chimney into the living room. Tiffany's mom and the grandmothers didn't bat an eye at the smoke and ash whirling around them. Patty later said she thought the movie was 3-D until the fire alarm started going off and I ran shrieking for the attic fan switch.

Anyway. Thanksgiving is my favorite all-time holiday. I like Christmas music, and dressing up on Halloween is fun, but mostly I like piling up my plate with casseroles, mashed potatoes, cranberries, turkey, ham, pie, and love.

Mmmm-mmmm. Can't get me enough of that love.