Thanksgiving 2023 with and a shadow from 1966

The plan for Thanksgiving 2023 was the same plan we had for Thanksgiving 2022. It would be the core five of us, like usual. Teri, Me, Nastia, Elena and Nancy. There was talk about if Amanda is off, and I’d extended my unusually early invitation to my mother to join us. The usual invitation goes something like a couple of days before the event, I’ll ask, “If no one has invited you to dinner for (inset holiday) and you feel like coming over we’d like you to join us, Teri’s cooking.” In all honesty, who can turn down an invitation like that?

Before Covid and Billy's purchase of his house, Eric and Lynn would put on a large dinner. Over the years the dinner has gotten small. Teri and I wanted to make our own dinner, so we left sometime after the girls came over from Russia. So maybe it was in the late 2010’s. Several people have passed on and after Billy moved into his house,Thanksgiving moved there. Billy’s future in-laws joined and from what I hear it is very noisy and alive. Since we went solo, our group has not varied much. We were looking at a near record turnout this year with Sean and his dad, Sean Sr. joining us for at least part of the day.

It all changed about 10 days before Thanksgiving. My mom calls one evening an unusual event. I’m at the age where if you are calling in the evening, someone has died or you need to go to the hospital. Thank God it has been 99% imagination and only 1% reality, but that’s still the first thought when the phone rings. My mom is 89, her brother is, what, 94? They are both showing their age, but when I get to their age, my bet is I'll be dead twenty years. So, my mom calls up and says she is hosting Thanksgiving and so far Eric and Lynn are coming. Ruth is in Florida and Karl has his own gathering to attend most likely at his house with all his relatives, Kristen, her two kids, Madeline’s sister and her family et al.

It’s a total surprise, My mom hasn’t hosted a Thanksgiving meal in over twenty years. I tell her I have to talk to Teri, but if we do come she’ll have to let Teri make her mom’s stuffing and we could be as many as eight. I count off for her, there is myself, Teri, Nancy, Elena, Sean, the father and Sean the son and my daughter the holy ghost, or at least that is the way Sean, the son treats her. Who am I to complain, when he finally wises up it’ll be too late. It reminds me of an old Abbott and Costello joke. Abbot asks Costello if he knows what a husband is. Costello replies, “yes, it’s what’s left of a boyfriend after the spirits been killed.” Sorry, I still think that is funny even in the ‘Me too’ era. I looked up the quote and I’m a little off, but either version is still funny.

Sean, the son is taking the holy ghost, Nastia to his mom’s after we eat dinner, so we have to have dinner at one in the afternoon. I’m talking to my mom a few days before Thanksgiving. She checks the weight of the turkey. We both do a quick calculation and realize she will be stuffing the turkey about 5 in the morning to get it in the oven at 6 to take it out at 1 in the afternoon. I ask her several times if she wants me to come over.She is fine about it. I joke Thanksgiving evening that I woke up at 2:30 in the morning wondering if I should call her and ask her if she’d want me to come over at 5 AM. She didn’t think that was funny. Teri makes the stuffing the day before and delivers it. It’s a great stuffing. I’ve talked about it before and won’t go into detail again. I can recycle old jokes, but talking about how to make a stuffing recipe every Thanksgiving might be a bit much. The one secret I’ve told no one and instructed my mother what to lie, I mean tell is how the turkey was basted. Now Teri, my dear loving wife. Show her a baby, show her a deer, or better yet a baby deer, she’ll be crying over it. Try to get her to use the giblets to make a broth to baste the turkey and she’d stomp over, no not over, around a baby deer to stop you from doing it. Since I’ve known her, nah, the truth is I gave up over twenty years ago trying to get her to use the giblets, with a sliced onion, maybe a few other odds and ends, bring to a boil and let it simmer for a while and baste the turkey. NAH, she’d cook it up and feed it to the dogs at one point, maybe her dad might have eaten it At one point. All I know is for many years she has used chicken broth and the gibbles, as she calls them, are nowhere to be found. Dinner on Thanksgiving was not at Muller one PM, very surprising. And yes, if you are wondering I still haven’t gotten around to patenting Muller time, though, Miller Beer came close in the 70’s and 80’s with Miller Time. And being a holiday, Teri and I have a discussion. So instead of going in one car, I drive on ahead. Our ‘discussion’ was so important I’ve forgotten what we discussed, so I can’t go into detail. Part of my bribe to come to dinner is my request to use the dinner ware that I remember from my childhood. The white plates with little pink flowers on them. They came out at every family gathering back in the 60’s. I think I remember dropping and breaking one. It’s funny how memories are not reliable. My mom and I count the dishes and there are six. So I say, “I guess someone else broke one too.” She counts the cup and there are only six cups and she says there are only six cups so it must be a set of six place servings. I drop it thinking six is an odd number of settings, usually it’s eight or twelve. She tells me when I ask that the dishes were purchased when her and my father were on their honeymoon in Montreal, Canada. I later joke with Bruce, her friend and companion, to be careful with the dishes because they are older than he is. My mom didn’t think that was funny. Boy, I was hitting on all cylinders that day. Because I wasn’t there at 5 AM to stuff the turkey, I tried to help out. Teri bought a salad and while we ate the salad, I tried to keep the food warm. Over the last few years my mother, as I said, hasn't hosted a major dinner, so all of her utensils that I remember her having have been given away,yes, some to me, or put away and she doesn’t off the top of her head remember where. I’m sorry to say at one or two, maybe three points I did use my hands, but rest assured I’d washed them several times between the start and the end. Sorry, everyone. We sat down to dinner about fifteen minutes late. We eat a salad that used to be part of every large gathering in Teri’s family and for a long while in hers and mine. We are a good sized gathering of around a dozen or so and despite Teri suffering from claustrophobia a little everyone enjoyed themselves. Lynn, just getting over a surgery, sat at one end of two tables. Eric next to her, Sean, the father sat across from him and I hope enjoyed talking about cars and such with Eric. Sean the son and the holy ghost, Nastia sit next to Sean, the father. I got to eat off one of the white plates, just like all those years ago. It wasn’t the same, but it didn't matter. Elena sat across from her sister and Sean, the son. KJ attended his first thanksgiving and was very unimpressed with it, I think he slept through it. I don’t think he even got to eat his turkey baby food. I’m sorry, it sounds awful. It broke up around three. Sean, the son and the holy spirit left for his mom’s house. Sean, the father left for his friend's house and I think he got stuck in traffic heading home to Orange county. I didn’t hear the whole story. Since I’d made a good portion of the mess in the kitchen, I started cleaning. I kept telling my mom to go sit down and relax,but that would be like telling Teri to do the same. Teri kept asking me if I wanted her to finish up. I asked her why, she replied because I’m feeling useless. I had to leave the sink for a moment about 70% of the way towards clean and there she goes taking over cleaning. She now felt useful and not lazy, yeah, go figure, her lazy? She finishes the dish, I’m drying and trying to figure where everything goes. Reminded me of the first time I hosted a dinner party at the house when I was in my early twenties and used every dish, plate, bowl and spoon for a party of six. And yes my mother made sure I cleaned up. About forty years later I sometimes clean while I cook. I’m getting better.

I think Elena heads over with Matt to his mom’s house to spend some time with her. She comes home not too late, happy. She and Sean, the son and also the father have to work on Friday, so early to bed. It is nice to get all together like that. Since Covid gatherings are rarer than they should be. Everyone has gotten out of the habit or maybe feels it’s more of a hassle than it's worth. I miss all the hustle and bustle of everyone together. Maybe one day all four kids and our families and our mom can all gather together, if we can find a place large enough and have a meal. I’ve included a picture of I think Thanksgiving, maybe Easter from some time in the 60’s. I’m not five or six, I’m maybe six, seven, That would make Ruth four or five and Eric about three, maybe. I'm sitting on Wally's lap and Karl is behind me next to mom. Wally’s oldest is the other baby in my mom’s arms. Joanne, Wally’s wife, I think is taking the picture. My Aunt Emilie is on the left holding Ruth. My dad is most likely delivering milk. So either Thanksgiving or Easter. The clock on the right I have. The tapestry in the background was brought upstate, hung in the living room, over the fireplace and stolen when there was a break in sometime in the early 70’s. My Uncle Tonny bought that for my mom from Germany in the early 60's.I always liked it and was sorry it was stolen.