I intended to post this yesterday but Autumn came over and spent the afternoon and then about 10 minutes after she left to go back to Austin, Jade showed up and spent the early evening and then I had pecans to shell.
When I was growing up we didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. My mother always said she didn’t want to go through the effort and then have to repeat it all a month later for Christmas Eve dinner, not the she did any of the cooking for that. We always had a maid/cook when I was growing up. I think her only contribution to that was making the angel food cake.
Our family was very small…parents and three children and my maternal grandmother who lived in her own little apartment attached to our house by a porte cochere and they did not get along. After a few years Ma stopped coming over to our house and I don’t think Mother ever went over to visit her either. My mother was a menopause baby born long after my grandmother considered her days of raising children were over but her father doted on her and spoiled her rotten and then when my mother was 16, he died. Her two older sisters, older by a decade plus, were both childless and lived in different cities and Mother was not close to them either. My father’s family lived in Lubbock on the other side of this very large state and my mother did not like his family and they didn’t much care for her either so we rarely saw them. My father’s one sibling, his sister, had one child so I had one first cousin who I have only seen maybe about 10 times in my whole life.
When I was 12 or 13 my father rented a little beach house in the brand new development of Sea Isle on the far west end of Galveston Island, five miles of nothing past the previous last beach house community. Now of course the island is developed all the way to San Luis Pass and the bridge that connects the west end of the island with the mainland, a bridge that didn’t exist back then. My father bought a lot on the bay side on one of the three canals and had a house built. After that every Thanksgiving weekend, really every weekend, holiday, and summer, was spent there and Mother, unwilling to do Thanksgiving in the city, was doubly unwilling at the beach house. I don’t remember a single Thanksgiving dinner with my core family growing up. If my family did Thanksgiving before the beach house I don’t remember it but definitely never after.
After Marc and I got together we would go to his mom’s for Thanksgiving, easily the first decade or so when the kids were little. When Diane got old enough that she didn’t want to mess with it we would host Thanksgiving at our house. When I started the river guide era in 1993 when the kids were teens but not fully grown I spent most Thanksgivings on the river, one of the four annual trips. But then things started to fall apart for the outfitter and I quit guiding in 2002. By then Sarah and Mike had four kids and Thanksgiving was happening at their house. And so in the years since we have all gathered at Sarah’s house when we all lived in the city. Once we moved out here and Sarah and Mike followed a few years later we still gathered at her house until a few years ago we hosted it here. This year we once again gathered at Sarah’s house. With Mikey and Audra having two little ones it was easier for Marc and I to go there than everyone come here.
And so I got my cooking done, packed up everything and we spent a very fun afternoon and evening, four generations of us. And oh by all the powers that be we had so much food! The dressing, butternut squash casserole, and cranberry sauce I made; the smoked turkey and stuffed jalapeños Mikey made; the roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli rice casserole, deviled eggs, green beans, honeyed carrots, and apple cranberry pie that Sarah made, and the dinner rolls that Autumn made but no picture of all the food. Board games and card games followed, food was divvied up and Marc and I got home about 9:30.
Paisleigh set the table.
No words needed.
Mikey keeping an eye on Harrison.
Paisleigh telling me to wait before I took the pic.
Robin, Sarah, and Autumn.
Paisleigh having a moment.
Game time.
Families can be a curse and a blessing.
ReplyDeleteLooks like you had a good time.
Fun!
ReplyDeleteMy recollection regarding Thanksgiving is a little different. Yes, we quit (mostly) having it after we moved to the Briar Hollow house but once we built the beach house (early 60s) eventually we did have a Thanksgiving dinner (nearly) every year but it was almost always Mexican food because our mother didn’t (as Ellen says) want turkey twice in one month - and Mexican food was easier to make (or get take out…). But like Ellen, once I married, my own small family would have a classic Thanksgiving dinner every year - many years with just a turkey breast as there were only the two (eventually three) of us. Also true when we lived in Switzerland. Ultimately, once we moved to WA, we would hold large dinners with 15-20 relatives (on wife’s side) that lived in the PNW. This year (after daughter & granddaughter were unable to join us), we were lucky to get invited to a new family dinner held by one of the grown nephews at their homestead out in the SW WA boonies where they grow their own food (and turkey). 9 adults, four - and a half - young children, two dogs and a cat.
ReplyDeleteWe always had Thanksgiving dinner. My poor mother, who really did not like to cook and really had no gift for it, would manage to put on an entire traditional meal. The broccoli would be mushy and covered in Cheez Whiz, there might be a squash casserole and she always made real cranberry sauce. Her gravy was good too. I give her props for doing it. She let me take over as soon as possible and that was fine with me.
ReplyDeleteThat was fun! Thanks for the story! Sounds like maybe your mother might have been less than easy. We have always had laid back thanksgiving dinners. Loads of prep and cleaning initially but once we are all gathered it is great fun.
ReplyDeleteGuess where I had Thanksgiving dinner this year? Sea Isle! One of my best friends lives there, on the bay side, but not directly on a canal. We often go to the West End Marina to eat at a newish restaurant -- they have some of the best coconut shrimp around. Now that they've dropped the toll on the San Luis bridge, it's easy as can be to cross the pass and visit a nature preserve about four miles or so down the road: no more $4 round trip across the bridge.
ReplyDeleteLovely photos. Warm greetings from Montreal, Canada 😊 ❤️ 🇨🇦
ReplyDeleteI think that my family is even smaller than yours was. My daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons. That’s it!
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like your Mom wasn't crazy about anyone in her extended family -- and maybe vice versa -- so I can see how you didn't develop a strong Thanksgiving tradition as a child. Being out on Galveston Island sounds nice, though, and I wouldn't want to try to cook away from home either. Your gathering looks easy and casual. Is that Rummikub?
ReplyDeleteThat's just lovely! Paisleigh did a great job on the table. We had 41 at my cousin's house this year. My dad had four sisters and a brother, and they all had children, and then they had children, and now there are some greatgrands. My mom's side is just as big - she had three brothers who all had kids who had kids, and there are greatgrands on that side too.
ReplyDeleteThanksgiving is more about the fellowship than the food for me. My daughter is a little anal about organizing things and she made food assignments and even had "to-go" containers with names on them. She herded everyone through the food still laid out and told everyone to fill up their containers and go home! I was not assigned the clean-up, but I helped my son-in-law, and we had some time to talk while we worked. They had cooked two turkeys, and a ham was left. He was going to toss the carcasses! I brought them home and cooked the meat off before I gave them to the cats. I got over a pound of meat! Not to mention the broth that I put in the freezer. My daughter may take after me in her ability to organize, then make people do what she wants, but she is not thrifty!!
ReplyDelete