A Different Thanksgiving

My mother did not like to cook.  She did so because her family like to eat and because that was one of her jobs.  Sure there were times when we gave her a break from that task and did the cooking for her.  There were other times when she just did not feel like cooking so take-out was the solution.  I imagine that she would have preferred if we could get by on grilled cheese, bacon and tomato sandwiches as our staple meal.  There was one meal though that she really did enjoy preparing.  Not so much the cooking aspect.  The slaving away for many hours in the hot kitchen.  Not even the backbreaking task of cleaning up afterward.  She loved this meal because of what it represented and because the family would be together.  This meal, of course, was Thanksgiving dinner.

The night before Thanksgiving, Mom was already busy preparing as many of the items she could prior to turkey day.  The kitchen was abuzz with the clanking of pots and the whirling of kitchen appliances.  The house was already coated in the olfactory equivalent of an orgasm. Perhaps I could have just said that her cooking smelled wonderful 🙂

You could count on mom making several dishes that were her signature Thanksgiving dishes.  There was the turkey with both wet and dry stuffing, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, white and wheat dinner rolls, peas, mashed potatoes and gravy, and her world famous potato salad (my favorite and better than any other mother can make).  She also had finger type foods like deviled eggs, green olives, celery sticks with cheese spread and assorted veggies with ranch dressing.

Mom loved to cook this meal and everyone lucky enough to eat it, loved doing just that.  Even when there were goof-ups like last year’s missing turkey or the many times that the meal was half over before mom remembered the rolls were still in the oven, she made Thanksgiving dinner the best.  You had to undo the buttons/zipper on your pants after stuffing yourself with mom’s fine dinner.

Thanksgiving dinner also gave mom a reason to bring out the fine china. Which meant lots of dishes to wash just when you feel like do nothing but curling up with a bottle of tums and sleeping off the tryptophan laced meal.  Somehow the dishes managed to miraculously wash themselves and the rest of the day/evening was spent enjoying each other’s company.

Sadly this year will be far different for me and my family.  We will not have mom’s Thanksgiving dinner again.  I wish that I had paid more attention to how she did all of it.  I wish I could have known that last year’s meal was the last of her’s we would have. Given that there is little chance of us replicating what mom did, we have decided to do things differently.  There will be no turkey. No potato salad. Nothing that would have resembled mom’s menu.  Instead we are going to make new things and try out new dishes and perhaps forge new traditions.  Of course I have reservations about this plan, just as I have reservations about celebrating this holiday at all.  It is incredibly sad to imagine this holiday without my mother or my father.  While I have no choice but to go on without them, I do have a choice in how to go about that task.

I will miss her Thanksgiving dinner. I will really miss her potato salad.  I miss her.