Tag: Thanksgiving

A Thanksgiving Like No Other

Today is Thanksgiving in the USA. As a child, I happily celebrated this holiday with my family every year. I was young enough and self-centered enough to be unaware this was an American tradition rather than a world-wide phenomenon. It was only later, when I grew up and attended college, that I learned that other cultures did not also recognize this unique excuse for a holiday.

While it is true that many other countries happily took part in the extended extermination of the Native Americans, it was only those of us that later chose to stay in the newly vacated territories who annually elect to celebrate the racial extinction called manifest destiny.

Relax, this isn’t going to become a history lesson or politically correct rant. I promise. Read on.

Despite its socially distasteful past, I love Thanksgiving. I enjoy celebrating the holiday as a chance to gather with family for the sole reasons of eating too much food, drinking too much alcohol, and arguing about why the Lions – the worst team ever to walk out onto a football field – continually get scheduled to play on Thanksgiving Day. Is the NFL punishing them by never allowing them to be home for Thanksgiving? Or are they punishing us for never watching Lions games during the rest of the season?

It’s a mystery that may never be resolved in the Wilbanks household.

We have a large family, and every two years the entire extended group shows up at our house to celebrate Thanksgiving. If you are a longtime reader of Deep Dark Thoughts, you probably already know this. You have been informed of past years’ trials and tribulations during this time of year. I fully expected this year to be able to regale readers of yet another year of alcohol-fueled political discussions, hurt feelings, insulted relatives that I wouldn’t hear from for another twelve months, and the general mayhem that goes along with squeezing a large group of related people into the same room for three days.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances being what they are, this will most likely be a more subdued celebration. We may all see each  other, but it will most likely be through computers and phones, and the arguments will be much shorter as hitting the disconnect on a phone is much quicker and easier than trying to find out who stole your keys while you were drinking your eighth glass of the holiday punch.

The gathering will be much smaller, limited to those family members that we have been quarantined with for the past eight months and those willing to brave the cold of the backyard patio. I’m sure there will be a few sturdy souls sitting in lawn chairs and waving at us through the sliding glass door. It won’t be comfortable out there, but hey, free food is free food.

We will be following all the recommended rules of engagement as we dine. The turkey will be wearing a mask for five hours as it sits in a 350-degree oven. When it is placed on the table it will be properly socially distanced from the rest of the food invited to attend. I too, will most likely be socially distanced from the cranberry sauce as I have been accused many times of taking more than my fair share of this commodity. The rest of the family continually insists that cranberry sauce is a garnish for other side dishes and not to be confused as a side dish itself.

I respectfully disagree and will continue to fill my plate as I see fit.

But I digress.

There will most likely be the same amount of food prepared as past years, but the actual attendees will be fewer. We will all be appropriately spaced from each other, of course, so as not to risk exposure to someone else’s cooties. This will be a benefit for me actually as the smaller members of my family have in the past found it totally acceptable to sneeze at the table with their mouths full. I have more than once had to politely brush away partially chewed olives and bread rolls from my plate and clothing while at the same time pretending I didn’t want to beat a child to death with a drumstick off of the turkey.

The drawback, however, is that regular social discourse will also be greatly hampered. A normally simple act such as passing the salt from one family member to another will now more closely resemble a last second, 50-yard, Hail Mary pass in the final seconds of a football game.

A Lions football game, as I can almost guarantee the intended recipient is going to miss the catch.

Conversations will be stilted and awkward as well. Statements shouted across the table will invariably be misheard or misunderstood. Although, I actually think this might be the best part of the meal. We could make a game out of it. When someone shouts, “I would like some more fruit salad,” and Aunt Mary runs out of the room to lock herself in the bathroom and cry, we can all take guesses as to what the hell she thought she heard.

To be honest, we already play this game every year since Aunt Mary is hard of hearing and easily offended.

She’s also a Lion’s fan.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Thanksgiving the Hard Way

Another Thanksgiving weekend has arrived. Families are gathering around a large dead bird and announcing the things that have occurred in the past year that have made them thankful. My family is no exception.

At our house, Thanksgiving is a bit of a big deal. The entire extended family gathers for the full weekend and doesn’t leave until the last cranberry in the house has been consumed. But this wasn’t always the case for me. When I was growing up, Thanksgiving was a somewhat smaller affair.

In the Wilbanks household, Thanksgiving was not a huge gathering or celebration. I remember in school I would do all the typical Thanksgiving things – cut out hand-shaped turkeys, paste together brown and tan paper chains, and assemble pinecone and peanut butter bird feeders – but most of that stuff found its way into the garbage can before the turkey in the oven was even brown.

On the day itself, it was typically a small gathering in our house. My dad’s parents had both died before I was nine, and my mom’s parents rarely bothered to come to our house. I suppose the 90-minute drive from San Juan Bautista was just too much of an ordeal for them (although if we ever failed to drive to their house for Christmas dinner, we would hear about it from my grandmother nonstop for the next year). My mom’s brother and his wife would show up on occasion, but since they lived in Los Angeles at the time it was understandable that they usually stayed home.

My dad’s many brothers and sisters all had their own family obligations so, we never saw any of them. Besides, all of the aunts and uncles and cousins on my dad’s side of the family got together once a year for a family reunion in the summer, and by Thanksgiving most of the fights and arguments that occurred at the reunion hadn’t yet been resolved. I will probably delve into the Wilbanks Family Reunions in more detail in a later blog. For now, let’s stay focused on Thanksgiving.

My two brothers are both much older than I am, and they had already moved out of the house by the time I was eight. They would, however, both come over on Thanksgiving to eat with us. My oldest brother, Dennis would typically show up late on Thanksgiving Day. The rest of us would already be eating when his beat-up Camaro would pull into the driveway. He showed up, said hi to my dad, then asked him for money because he needed gas in his car, or he was behind on his rent. My mom would hand him a paper plate, point at the half-mutilated carcass of the turkey, and tell him to get something to eat before she threw it all away.

Dennis would fix a plate of food, then go ask dad for money again.

I remember one year was a little different from the others, however. Dennis arrived, late as usual, but when mom handed him a plate, he said, “No thanks. I stopped and ate a couple burgers on the way here.” I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I absolutely believe he stopped for burgers on the way to a Thanksgiving meal, I just couldn’t believe he said it out loud to mom’s face. Dennis was never the most socially adept person I knew, but I thought he had at least had enough survival instincts not to poke a sleeping bear.

Turns out I was dead wrong.

To be fair to Dennis, mom was not the best cook in the neighborhood. Her turkey was typically just shy of being inedible. By the time she was done baking it, the turkey had the taste of sawdust but had a slightly lower moisture content.

It was the same meal every year. There were black olives that, as soon as they hit the table, I grabbed up ten of them (one on each finger, of course) then ran off before my mom could yell at me to wait for the rest of the food. The olives were followed by the bright red tube of cranberry sauce that still retained the shape of the can it came out of, and a plate of yams with marshmallow on top that nobody ever touched but mom insisted on making anyway. It was a family “tradition,” she said. Apparently throwing away an entire plate of untouched yams every year was also a “tradition” in our house.

Next came the bland, gluey, mashed potatoes. Eating them was like eating the paste they gave you in kindergarten, only with slightly less flavor. My grandmother always made great mashed potatoes with plenty of milk and butter because … well, because she was a normal person. However, she never bothered to pass that particular recipe down to my mom who figured a little salt added to that glutenous mass was all the seasoning it needed. On a few occasions she would put down a little bowl of gravy to go with the potatoes, but the stuff had the color and consistency of motor oil that badly needed to be changed. I never had the courage to find out what it tasted like.

The only part of the meal I looked forward to (besides the olives) was the stuffing. Stove Top stuffing hit the market in 1972, and it reached the Wilbanks Thanksgiving meal a few years after that. All you needed to do was put all the stuff in the box into a pot of boiling water and stir. Even my mom had a hard time ruining that part of the meal. Not that she didn’t try. There were frequently burned bits from the bottom of the pot that she would stir into the rest of the stuffing to “hide” her mistake.

Still, it was the best thing on the table. And it was usually gone by the time I got close enough to the table to fill up my plate. One box of stuffing is supposed to feed four people. There were five of us. So … go figure.

Don’t get me wrong. I have fond memories of Thanksgiving as I was growing up as well. It wasn’t all bad.

There were olives.

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Enjoying Deep Dark Thoughts? Follow me on Facebook so you don’t miss a post. Just go to my page and click the “Like” button to receive updates on my blog and other projects.

And you can follow me on Twitter @gallenwilbanks.