Dear Liza,
It is now just a week before I get to start fixing things for Thanksgiving. The day before the holiday will also be Cousin Jasper’s 10th birthday, so there will be party preparations, as well.
It is odd that when I look back on past Thanksgivings I remember the family and games, but when I look forward to the upcoming one, I think of the food that needs making. Particularly, the turkey.
For whatever reason, I have never had any success with roasting the enormous birds. They are never done right, either too pink or stone dry, and investing that much money and energy into something that I have no confidence in was, and is, exhausting.
Back when I was a kid, Thanksgiving was a dizzying blur of family and food. An assortment of my dad’s large family would show up early in the day, and we would climb trees and ride bikes until tons of food magically appeared, weighing down Momma’s old table. We ate, watched football, and played cards and Scrabble until the day just faded away.
Even when my kids came and I was THE MOM, we still went to my parents’ house for the holiday. I helped, of course, but the dinner-making magic was still my mother’s magic.
The year my sister-in-law Christy suggested my then-85-year-old Momma order the dinner from the local Von’s Market was a revelation. Food and family without wearing out the Mom! Thanks, Christy!
After Momma passed we would go to visit Auntie Bridgett’s family for the holiday. There were three turkeys, three cooks, and literally a twenty-foot-long table. Again, I was off the hook for the BIG stuff.
We are staying home this year. There will be fewer folks around Momma’s same old table. And, at the urging of Grandpa Nelson and Auntie Bridgett and thanks to Christy, we are ordering our turkey already roasted from the local market. I can now look forward to family and games.
Thanks, guys!
Love,
Grandma Judy
Dear Liza 