I don’t know if this is funny or sad, but I’ll never forget a Thanksgiving I spent with my mum years back.
She always made a huge to-do about Thanksgiving, and it made sense when we had a huge houseful of people. Over the years, though, everybody drifted away. The steps are all gone, my brother died years ago, my sisters all got married and moved out of province…
So finally the year rolls around that I’m the only family left to spend the holiday with her. I get over there and I’m gobsmacked to see that she hasn’t adjusted her approach to Thanksgiving dinner at all. She’s made four pies for dessert, two pumpkin, a lemon merengue, and a chocolate merengue – and chocolate puddings are chilling, too. For dinner, there’s a massive turkey and a ham, like always. And of course, all the usual stuff, gallons of mashed spuds, buckets of gravy, two types of cheese sauce for the veggies, freshly baked rolls, salad, and on and on and on…
All the industry and expense would have been surreal for two people, anyway… but she knew that I had been vegetarian for years. :smack:
Holiday’s are always fun with my fiancee’s family. After we eat, we usually stay sitting at the table and his family tells me lots of funny stories from when they were all younger. This Thanksgiving though, the best stories had happened that very morning. MY SO’s parents, sister and nephew had all gone to church that morning. They are not even slightly religious but it was to be a memorial service for my SO’s grandparents - so they went.
The nephew, who is 6, has only been to church 2 or 3 times. As they were entering the church, the priest was standing at the door greeting everyone. Jacob (the nephew), looks up the priest and asks his grandmother, “Is that Jesus?” She said that no, it was the priest. Just as they come even with the priest, Jacob replies with, “Why is he here? Where the hell is Jesus?”
This may sound like a Jean Shepard story but I swear by my tattered honor that it is true.
During the first Eisenhower Administration my spinster Aunt Betty, my grandmother and Aunt Betty’s newly acquired boy friend came down from Cleveland to the wilds of Logan County for Thanksgiving. That they came by train will give some idea of just how long ago it was. The boy friend was a great hulking brute of early middle age called Moose – even by my grandmother, a proper Edwardian lady.
My father had a fetish about reserving half a turkey for sandwiches, hash and general leftovers. He was determined that there would be a half turkey in the ice box on Friday come hell or high water. As the meal wound toward its end Dad made the obligatory inquiry about who would like some more. Since one side of the bird was pretty well gone I knew better. So did my sister and mother. Moose, who had already had four servings of everything, allowed that he would like some more. Dad looked at Moose, at the turkey and back at Moose again. You could see the struggle between the obligation of hospitality and his hope to preserve the remaining half of the bird. At that point Grandma chimed in.
“I’m sure Moose would love to have some of that crispy skin.”
Dad then proceeded to skin the remaining half of the turkey, slapped the greasy pile on Moose’s plate, grabbed the platter and all but ran with it into the kitchen.
No one laughed at the time or gave any signal that Dad’s flaying of the turkey carcass was in any way out of the ordinary. For the rest of his life, however, you could get a smile of triumph out of my father by saying ”I’m sure Moose would love to have some of that crispy skin.”
For some reason Moose disappeared from our lives shortly after that.
This Thanksgiving I was sitting on the couch next to my son. He was bent over and reaching for something on the floor. My hands were kind of cold, so I touched his back where his shirt was raised up. It had the desired effect, and after he stopped laughing, he said, “Mama, remember when you put the icecube in my butt?” Which caused the other conversations in the room to stop, and everyone was staring at me.
He was refering to me dropping a tiny ice chip down the back of his pants. But I don’t think anybody believed me.
Well there was the year I asked my roommate to put my family’s bird in the oven for me. However, I failed to remind him to remove the Saran Wrap when doing so.
There was on year when all my guy friends were sans-woman. We decided to have a nice, civil, sit-down gorge orgy. Now keep in mind that all of my friends at the time were men of substance, with an average weight of probably 230.
We sat down and politely agreed to begin the nibblage. Six hands immediately grabbed for the bird. I swear that within 10 minutes there was not even a grease spot where the carcass once was. Like a bunch of freakin’ pirrahnas, I tells ya.
And there wasn’t much of a long and happy retirement for the pie, either.
We had Thanksgiving alone this year, just me and ElzaHub (not on purpose - the snow kept us home), so we decided to have a nice dinner and eat at the dining room table, with candles and everything.
We forgot that we don’t use the table very often. Obviously, the cats have no idea what it’s really for. Emmy the Wonder Cat[sup]TM[/sup] climbed up on the chair next to us, put her paws on the table, saw the feast before her eyes, and grabbed a slice of turkey off of my plate before I could stop her. She then made a run for it and chowed down.
Because they were running a bit wild, I had to ‘speak’ to the hordes of neices and nephews who were upstairs, while the adult sat downstairs in the typical post-meal stupor. I had to raise my voice, because I had them lined up on the balcony overlooking the living room.
The whole time I’m talking to them, my 14-month old son is standing next to me going, “Rrrawah Rrrrhhrr! Rrrrrrwah rah rah rah!!” in this deep, authorative voice. It was hysterical.
Did you recieve that as an email? I did, and from a friend that said it happened to someone who he was very close to. I can’t remember if he said it was friend or family though.