My mother’s family always gathered at my grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner. As much as I enjoyed spending time with my relatives, I gradually discovered that I would enjoy them even more if I just relaxed and appreciated each moment.
I learned to accept the fact that my Uncle Bennett — my mother’s brother — was going to play the same Christmas carols on my grandmother’s piano every year as his way of getting us into the holiday spirit. Although he played well, he had a limited repertoire and ignored our requests for other carols. Thanks to my uncle, I also learned that no matter how much you may like “Joy to the World,’’ you can get tired of hearing it.
Part of that fatigue was due to the incessant “singing” of Music, my grandmother’s aptly named cocker spaniel. The minute my uncle began playing the piano, Music would begin howling as only a self-confident dog can. We all knew that both my uncle and my grandmother would be upset if anyone tried to take Music outdoors, so he stayed in the living room, howling to his heart’s content.
At a young age, I learned to ignore my cousin Mark’s habit of drowning his mashed potatoes in an ocean of ketchup. Every Thanksgiving, I would sit at the children’s table, hoping Mark had abandoned this revolting habit, but he never did. He is now in his 70s, and I sometimes wonder if he still has a ketchup fetish.
My survival guide was not limited to Thanksgiving Day. The problem with many holiday weekends is that they often seem prolonged and even a bit boring. At Thanksgiving, it is easy to reach a point when you ask yourself how many leftovers you have to eat before hamburgers or pot roasts make their way to the dinner table. Even pumpkin pie begins to lose its allure. My father would respond to anyone who began complaining about leftovers by mentioning all the starving children in the world and how grateful they would be to eat the food on our table. His lecture was so powerful that I would eat everything on my plate, including mashed potatoes. I just wouldn’t reach for the ketchup.
My mother’s way of handling a long holiday weekend was to assign jobs to all of us. Usually, we ended up in the backyard raking leaves into giant piles that we would immediately destroy by jumping into them. When it sounded like we were having too much fun, my mother would come to the back door and remind us that we were supposed to be working to make the yard look better, not worse. After reminding us several times to stop playing and do our jobs, she would use her “outdoor voice” to inform us we were risking the ultimate punishment — no television for the rest of the weekend. The thought of a weekend without Lassie or The Magical World of Disney inspired us to get busy and clean up. It occurred to me that my mother had a survival guide of her own.
Perhaps my favorite Thanksgiving survival tool was to draw a calendar on a piece of cardboard and fill in the days until Christmas vacation. We were usually out of school for two weeks, and I spent most of that time watching holiday movies and eating Christmas fudge. On that last night of Thanksgiving weekend, when I knew I had to go to school the next day, I lay in bed and pictured a magic marker whirling madly as it struck the days off a calendar.
As I got older, I began to see my Thanksgiving survival guide as something of use for everyone, not just for me. I also discovered that it can be useful for everyday life, not just for holidays. If we practice patience and consideration for the needs and feelings of others, including cousins who put too much ketchup on mashed potatoes, things may just turn out all right.
Read CityView magazine’s “Giving” November 2024 e-edition here.