Is “thanksgiving” a day or a condition? During much of my younger life, it was merely the fourth Thursday of November, when I would be forced to endure a visit “up-the-hill,” the site where my father’s family lived. We always went there for this annual event.
My grandparents and their unmarried children lived in the old homestead. In other reflections, I have described this place. However, for memories of Thanksgiving meals consumed there, I need mention only the first floor which held two kitchens – one for eating and one for cooking and storing everything else needed for the family’s existence.
As for the Thanksgiving dinner, itself, there were always two meats: some sort of beef and some form of chicken. Occasionally, they might be replaced with pork chops or sausage. I cannot remember ever having a turkey on that table. Of course, there would be spaghetti, served in a bowl approximately the size of one used for bathing a small child. The salad bowl was almost as large. There must have been cooked vegetables as well, but they are not part of my recollection. It’s likely they were string beans or beets, since these were the only readily available canned crops from my grandfather’s large garden. After all, it was November, long after fresh produce would be available. Dessert would usually be apple pie and pumpkin pie. A real treat would be mincemeat pie, but it was not served nearly as often as I would have liked.
During dinner, there would be Italian conversation, which is everyone shouting simultaneously in Italian without anyone really listening to what was proclaimed. At least, this is what I assumed to be the case. Since neither my mother nor I understood Italian, I’m really not sure what information was ever exchanged during mealtime.
After the meal was finished, there was an opportunity for card-playing. No evening, and especially Thanksgiving evening, would be complete without a friendly exchange of insults over a hand of Hearts. The alternative would be a game of Canasta, which was accompanied by complaints of too much “freezing the pile.” The game would end when the number of angry players exceeded the number of non-angry relatives or when Uncle Joe would take his nap – whichever came first.
During the years when I lived in Niles, I spent Thanksgiving according to this unchanging pattern. When I left Niles for my four years at Kent State, I was able to avoid going home for the Holiday, even though almost every other student in this commuter college did vacate its dorms and fraternity houses. I, personally, enjoyed a quiet dinner at the Robin Hood, the main restaurant on the edge of the campus.
For the first four years of our marriage, it was expected that Karen and I would split Thanksgiving Day between our two families. At the time, we were living in Ithaca, New York. We went, first, to Sandusky to spend Wednesday and half of Thursday with Karen’s parents and brother. Her sister, Tami, lived in another state, but it was not required that she and her husband return to her hometown for family dinners on the holidays.
We always went to Sandusky before going to Niles, in eastern Ohio, where we could “stop” on our way back to New York. It was expected that there would be a full Thanksgiving meal for lunch in Sandusky and another one for dinner in Niles, with my parents. Actually, this procedure did not go according to plan for our first post-wedding Thanksgiving. An extensive snowstorm in northern Ohio prevented our drive from Sandusky to Niles on Thursday afternoon. We enjoyed an overnight stay in Cleveland, as described in another recollection, The Honeymoon. Our second Thanksgiving dinner was on Friday in Niles.
When we moved farther East, to New Hampshire, our attendance at a Thanksgiving celebration in Ohio was cancelled. Our move to Oregon resulted in the discontinuation of Christmas in Ohio, as well. By then, we were building our own nuclear family, and it was acceptable for holidays to be focused on our own children. Thanksgiving dinner for the five of us consisted of the traditional turkey and stuffing, which had to be made from Pepperidge Farm bread cubes, sausage and turkey liver! Of course, lime Jell-O with fruit cocktail was also mandatary, even if the Pilgrims never had it.
As the years passed, we added other relatives to our Thanksgiving dinner. When we retired and moved to Eagle’s Trace, changes occurred. Our children and grandchildren became responsible for providing the gathering site. Sometimes, Karen and I would join with either Deb and her husband or with Chris, Kelly and their girls at a local hotel buffet. In recent years, with the growth of the independent families of our children and grandchildren, Karen and I have begun to participate with our own friends in the Thanksgiving dinner provided by our retirement community.
After our marriage and the beginning of a new family, the appearances of a Norman Rockwell dinner were there, but the feelings of the true meaning of the day came much later, when our daughter and two sons would gather with us and their extended families for a special meal. It was then that I began to realize what family gratitude really meant.
On the side wall in the kitchen “up-the-hill,” there was a picture of an old man praying over a bowl of porridge and a loaf of bread on his own table, which also held a bible and a pair of reading glasses. Many years later, Uncle Joe gave me this illustration, knowing how much it had been my favorite. It now hangs on our own kitchen wall.
So, yes, I am very thankful for the hours we spent talking and laughing as we consumed our Thanksgiving dinner. I am grateful for the presence of all of us gathered around a table in different parts of our country where we lived at the time. On the other hand, maybe the image of an old man praying over a loaf of bread, a bowl of porridge and a bible is what Thanksgiving really should mean for all of us.