Thanksgiving Rant

When the barista at my local coffee shop asked me what I was doing for Thanksgiving, and I almost snapped at her, I realized that it was time to examine my feelings about Thanksgiving.

I love holidays that are seasonal, whose themes and symbols derive from natural phenomena but have a hard time relating to holidays whose origins are historical or political. Part of my discomfort with Thanksgiving comes from its founding myth, although I can divert myself from the political issues implicit in it, by telling myself it’s just another late (very late) harvest feast, like Michaelmas or Martinmas. I also dislike the bloated feeling that is often the result of excessive eating, and the afternoon slump which follows the consumption of turkey, when conversation dwindles and eyes glaze over. I’m not a big fan of turkey, either.

But perhaps the most thorny issue for me is the definition of family that is an inevitable part of Thanksgiving. There is an Italian saying: “Christmas with your family, Easter with your friends.” In America, Thanksgiving is all about family. But which family?

I have one friend, a grown woman whose son has just left for college. She is worried about telling her parents, who live in the same city she does, that she’s not planning to spend Thanksgiving with them. Instead, she plans to tag along with her son, who is eating dinner at the home of his father, her ex. She is choosing to define herself as mother rather than daughter for the first time in her life.

I stopped going home for Thanksgiving when I moved away from Los Angeles in 1981. I’ve never gone back and I’ve never missed it. Instead my struggle has been to define what is family for myself. And this is where the question: “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” comes in.

If I say I have nothing planned, I am assumed to be an “orphan” and in need of a family to take me in. If I say I am fixing dinner and my questioner has no plans, they will expect to be included. I can’t think of any other occasion when people invite themselves to dinner but at Thanksgiving the table is assumed to be elastic and there’s always room for one more.

Thanks to Lynn Jericho, who sent me a copy of her book Six Ways to Celebrate Christmas and Celebrate You! , I decided to take a more thoughtful rather than a reactive approach to Thanksgiving this year. I looked back at childhood memories of Thanksgiving to see what had shaped my picture of the holiday. The location passed back and forth between my mother and her sister. Uncle Bob and Aunt Jo always provided pumpkin pie and turkeys cut out of cranberry jelly. My mother always made a jello salad and a sweet potato casserole topped with marshmallows. I can remember sitting around waiting for the meal to be served and reading the Reader’s Digest . The food served, while good, was never exquisite and the conversation was designed to please the common denominator (perhaps a good argument for the children’s table). For me, it was the most boring holiday of the year.

After reviewing the roots of my distaste for Thanksgiving, I decided to think about what made a Thanksgiving special. Two very different Thanksgivings stood out in my mind. For a few years, my daughter and I were invited to eat Thanksgiving with my friend and mentor, Helen Farias and her husband James in Clear Lake. It was a long drive for us, about two hours, out of the city on a rainy, grey day, and north through small towns, into the country, until we finally turned off the highway onto a gravel drive and parked outside the tiny ramshackle structure that was their home. It would be just about dark when we arrived and the house would be lit with candles and the windows steamed up. Helen and James loved cooking and the kitchen would be stacked with piles of dirty dishes but the table would be laden with beautiful presentations of the usual fare. Somehow it all tasted better at Helen’s house. Joanna Powell Colbert and her husband would come over bringing food and we would sit around the table, and sip wine, and talk. The talk was always fascinating: about myths and symbols, about costumes and goddesses. My daughter, who was an adolescent, always felt included in the conversation. Someone would play the piano—I can’t remember who–and we’d sing songs. The evening often ended with a rowdy game of dictionary. It was a totally satisfying experience.

The other Thanksgiving I cherished is totally different. One Thanksgiving I was all alone. I can’t imagine where my daughter was. Perhaps she had been invited to eat with a friend’s family or maybe she was visiting her dad in L.A. I decided to cook a special meal just for myself and made my favorite squash stew, a recipe that has to be started the night before, by soaking the ancho chiles. The next day I made a roux of the chiles and various spices, and added tomatoes and butternut squash and mushrooms and zucchini. It takes hours to cook this squash stew. It was all very leisurely, no pressure to get things on the table. I also made cornbread and green beans tossed with Dijon mustard and butter. I probably cooked with a glass of white wine in my hand, because the recipe calls for white wine. I don’t remember dessert. What I do remember is the pleasure of spending all that time making a fabulous meal just for myself. I ate by candlelight and felt well nourished, rather than orphaned.

This year I do have plans for Thanksgiving. They’ve changed four times but I’m looking forward to what I’ve got planned now. I’m going as a “tag-along,” (not quite the same as an orphan) with a friend to his friend’s Thanksgiving. I’ll know a few people there and I’ll bring along my cranberry apple chutney which is easy to make and good to eat. I don’t know if I will have a good time but it will give me another chance to observe what happens when people work to create a celebration that combines good food and good company.

I invite you to examine your thoughts, hopes and dreams for Thanksgiving and post them as comments. Is American Thanksgiving unique? I wonder if Canadian Thanksgiving has a different flavor.