Thanksgiving - So many Turkeys, so little time - not a favor

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ite holiday, Although I have a great deal to be grateful for, this holiday
has almost always involved too many people, too much pressure and
more than enough stress. It is best when celebrated with a limited (very) number of
friends and absolutely the worst when thrown into situations where I knew no one
which was only made a bit better because they didn't care about me
so there was not much need to make nice socially.

Personally, I miss having a dozen or so adults around the "Big People's Table", and perhaps twice that many kids around the "Teen's" and "Kid's" tables.

Now it's just the missus and myself, and maybe a cousin or two who couldn't get dates.

In Canada we celebrated Thanksgiving early in October, not that anyone else cares. And It's usually just my parents and myself. Christmas Day is when we have our own traditional big family dinner (or supper as we normally call it) with relatives mostly on my mother's side over what used to be my grandparent's house (my aunt lives there now). It used to be really fun in my childhood when my cousins and I would bring each a couple of our toys and share them and had "kids" tables. Then, as I entered my teens and my anxiety problems grew worse it became stressful and nerve-wracking and I would either not go or suffer a meltdown being there. But now nearly all my cousins are living too far away or are celebrating with their own families and my grandparents who used to arrange the party are in a home. But I can't figure why Americans get so crazy about Thanksgiving almost as badly as Christmas, inviting tons of people over even if they can't stand them, and pigging out on turkey and everything else just to do it again a month later???

It's just going to be me, my husband, three of my kids, my daughters fiance, and some of the kids will drop by. Nothing too fancy this year. We probably won't even eat at the table. I'll probably just serve it buffet style and we will grab plates and go off to eat where we please, probably in front of a tv watching a movie. It's what makes us happy, so why not?

I'm not even cooking that much this year. This is our menu;

Turkey breast instead of a big turkey
Mashed potatoes
Gravy
Sweet potato casserolle
Green bean casserolle
Green beans
Corn on the cob
Macaroni and cheese in the oven
Devilled eggs
Apple pie
S'mores

I left out a lot of the usual favorites, mainly; dressing, candied yams, fried okra, squash casserolle, cranberry sauce, ambrosia, apple and banana salad, sweet potato pie, pecan pie, lane cake, pasta salad and some other stuff. Keep in mind that all of this is made from scratch. So, that's a lot of cooking. And a lot of leftovers.

We are leaving Friday to go to my husband's mother's house for the weekend and the food would just spoil and I'm not dragging all the leftovers with me up there just for her to complain about how they are cooked and tell me they are too unhealthy because that's not how she grew up eating. I'm sorry, she's not from here so she shouldn't move down here and then complain about how we cook. So, I'm not making much, and I'm not making things that don't keep.

I used to look forward to Thanksgiving, especially when I was little. I remember polishing the silver the week before, and helping my grandmother make things the day before, and getting up at 5am to watch her put the turkey on. Then the parade! We aren't even getting out the china this year. We can eat off of regular plates, especially since it will probably be in front of the TV.

Frances

I hate having to go around the table and list things we're (each family member) grateful for. Not because I'm not grateful/thankful for things I have, but it feels very uncomfortable/almost impossible for me to forcibly discuss emotions with my family like that.

i go to a party every year hosted by a crazy violent girl...

Now it all started two Thanksgiving's ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving......

Frances

... when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant ...

I just saw "Alice's Restaurant" again recently.

My sisters and their kids have other plans this year, as they often do. In those years, my girlfriend and I visit our friends. It's usually just a few people. We're very comfortable there. This year, it'll be three couples, one bringing their very young adult son. He's really cool, and it should be a fun day with all of them. We're all contributing multiple dishes, and I think it likely we'll all go home with some of everybody's leftovers. That means reruns of diverse foods for a few days. Makes me happy just thinking of it. Good food makes me smile.

What a nice change from the madness of the holidays of my upbringing, though I do have some good memories of those times, too.

... 'cept Alice doesn't live in the restaurant. she lives in the church nearby the restaurant with her husband Ray and Pasha the dog ...

And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got alot of
room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all thatroom,
seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that theydidn't
have to take out their garbage for a long time........


Frances

... Well, we got up there and found all that garbage, and we decided it'd be a ... a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red ... VW microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed off toward the city dump...

Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the
dump saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving." And we had never heard of a dump
closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off
into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.


Frances

... We didn't find one, until...













C'mon! Are we the only two people who remember Alice's Restaurant?

I don't really like this holiday........and yet in a while I will be off to my aunts house where we are having the dinner, to end up sitting alone in the corner as usual while no one even notices I am there. Because once the 'oh hi, how are you' small talk is over no one wants anything to do with actually talking about things with me.

Take a book and count yourself lucky that you don't have to deal with all that stuff. When I have to be around my husband's family, I always take a book so people leave me alone.

This year though, it's just those that live in my house who are here for Thanksgiving, and some of the kids friends will drop by to eat on some food later I'm sure. They usually do.

Frances