Yesterday, for the first time in many years, I did not make Thanksgiving dinner.
It was a combination of elements: but the main thing was, this year, we had no guests. Usually we have a full house – some of my sisters come, occasionally a younger brother, friends from out of town, friends from in town… all stumbling into the kitchen Thanksgiving morning, in various states of disheveled morning dress – eating muffins and drinking coffee, examining all the pies that I’d stayed up late baking the night before, newly cooled on the counter, eyeing the huge mixing bowl of rising bread dough – later to be transformed into Ryan’s famous potato rolls, smelling the sizzling butter and soaking porcinis that mark the beginning of the stuffing. They drift in and out of the kitchen all day – chopping, and peeling, and clearing away dishes on my command, picking at the spiced nuts, the olives, the cheese and crackers, deciding sometime not too long after noon that it’s okay to open that first bottle of wine. One sister sits on the couch, catching the good light to do her makeup while my daughter sits next to her, patiently waiting for her turn with the blush brush, closing her eyes as her aunty pretends to apply eyeshadow, rouge, little dabs of lipstick to her perfect tiny face. My other sister camps out on the floor in front of the woodstove, a fluffy blanket wrapped around her shoulders, playing Uno with my son, who is, as always, still in his pajamas. My daughter’s godfather watches football with the fierce determination of the committed – since no one else watches it with him (oh, except that one banner NFL year, when one sister’s now-ex was here to cheer alongside him). The scents change and mingle in the air – sautéed shallots and mushrooms, chunks of bread drying in the oven, the tingly red smell of cranberries and minced apples, wood smoke, cedar incense, boiling potatoes, sweet baking yams, yeasty rolls, and of course the good, brown smell of roasting turkey, 12 to 20 pounds, a pound per guest at least.
I missed this yesterday. I missed the dogs camped out under my feet, hoping I would drop something better than a carrot stem or an apple peel. I missed the sound of Aretha, Ryan Adams, Coltrane, and the Dixie Chicks. I missed the quick darts to the cold outside for chunks of firewood, twigs and seed heads to decorate the table with, a journey to the swings to push the kids until their little hands got icy and their noses red. I missed planning the menu, deciding what dishes absolutely had to be repeated, what things I knew no one would ask for again, what new thing I would take a leap of faith on and try for the first time.
I missed my full house, our funny ad hoc family gathered around the table carefully laid with my big sister’s grandmother’s good china (long story) the intricately folded napkins, the candlelight, the way there is always much too much of everything, my son tentatively trying one more thing every year, and taking at least three years to decide whether he really liked it, my daughter tucking into anything you put in front of her, my sister’s tipsy laughter, the contentious games of Trivial Pursuit, the friendlier ones of Apples to Apples, the semi-drunken round robin declaration of all things we are thankful for, the eventual, slow cleaning of the kitchen, the whipping of the cream, the brewing of tea, the never, never ending pies (the point is to be sure there would be pie for breakfast the next day, and maybe the day after that), sitting around the TV, sated, watching a movie, half heartedly picking at the leftovers as the sky goes dark outside and we are all here, in the warm, softly lit house, together under blankets, dogs and children sprawled across our laps, the lingering smell of clove and thyme in the air, thankful to be well fed, thankful to be well loved, thankful to be together.
You motherfuckers better get your asses back here next year. That’s all I have to say.
