Here we are again. Just two weeks ago we were sending our kids door-to-door in search of sugary delights, and now another indulging holiday is upon us. We are soon to be celebrating Thanksgiving, the day when we are grateful that the Native Americans taught us to farm and grow food to harvest and shared their bounty with the early settlers. Of course, we weren't that grateful, because in just a few short years, we ran them off of their land and put them on reservations, killed a few of them, shattered their culture and berated them. Of course, fair is fair, they now make a killing off of us in their resorts and casinos.
But, back to the Thanksgiving Holiday. The only really endearing part is when the family all gathers round and says Grace. That's when the really fun part starts. During the morning hours, you have your three classifications of people. The first group are the food prep people. They are slaving and sweating in the kitchen, working their fingers to the bone to get lunch or dinner ready. They have to prepare tons of food for everyone in the family, most you don't even know, and have it ready at a certain time. They have no time for you, no time for the holiday and most really are on a prescription for Xanax by noon. The second group is the whatever group. They sit around like it is any other day off of work or school. Get up when they want to, do what they want to, etc., until someone drags them to the big dinner.
The absolute worst one is the Thanksgiving lover. They are the tackiest person you will ever meet. They show up at your house early, always early, wearing either a sweater with a giant turkey on it or an early Christmas sweater they bought at Cracker Barrel. They have to tell you HOW GOOD your house smells, without offering to help do anything, except lug their 10 pound newspaper into your living-room floor and start dissecting sales papers and telling their other yuppie counterparts where they are going to be the next morning to shop at 3:00am to get a DVD player for a dime. Then when you inevitably get stuck beside them at the table, they tell you all the fun stuff they do or are going to do on the OTHER SIDE of the family. Then, no matter the time, they will sample some dessert and inform you they have to leave in order to get to Garden Ridge. They whisk out the door like a flash leaving crumpled piles of the non-essential sales papers behind like tumbleweed. These are the people you will see next at Christmas (with the same tacky sweater perhaps) and not again for the whole next year.
The fun part of Thanksgiving comes with the kids. Since there is no tree up (usually, though it's getting earlier now) you can mess with the younger kids and invite them outside to hunt eggs. It's not fun however, when you have black and blue kneecaps where they punch you when they figure out it's a trick and there are no eggs. Then you have the really old people you can have fun with telling them good things like, "Did you see F.D.R. in the parade this morning?" or even my favorite "This is the best Christmas dinner ever."
Thankful and just plain full, the next thing we do is waddle into the living room to turn on a football game. There's always plenty of relatives who are (in their own mind) a better commentator than the pros on the tube. Then everyone complains that they had too much and they won't do it again, knowing well and good that they will. The kitchen people are totally exhausted, knowing there are tons of dishes ahead, but so relieved to stop that they are half hanging out of the oven and sitting on the door as a bench. That's when the rudest of the rude come into the kitchen, deposit their plate by the sink and tell them how good their meal was, walking off before they were asked to help do the dishes.
In the South, we also generally serve cornbread dressing with our turkey. One of the other favorite staples of the day is hearing the folks argue about whose recipe is best. Then they have to compare their cooking style to those who have gone on before. They are more than happy to tell you what you didn't cook right, put too much or not enough of, or how you could have just done the whole thing better.
I know I am going to take some heat from people telling me that this is mean and not the way that their family does things. I know not everyone does it the same way, but you all know someone through comparison to everyone in this story. It's not meant to be everyone's family, but I can assure you, it's mine!
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