Close to Nowhere

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Food, family and tradition, especially turkey, make me very happy.

I used to enjoy Halloween, but the Food Channel is about to ruin that. I think that if I see one more gory food commercial I may scream bloody murder! Someone should tell all those baking shows that just because it’s gory, doesn’t mean it’s scary. Cakes with bleeding eyeballs are gross, not scary. And gross is for young boys, not cake.

I’ve seen several comments about mushing all the fall/winter holidays into one lump – Hallogivingmas maybe?

Thanksgiving always gets the short end of the stick. As soon as Halloween is over, Christmas is put on display. Right now, in all the stores, Halloween and Christmas are already filling the shelves. Once in a great while, I see a turkey or a cornucopia.

Many years ago, I went berserk and bought every kind of turkey/Thanksgiving dish available. My niece and her family were coming to spend the holiday with us and her kids had never had turkey for Thanksgiving. They usually went to the paternal side of the family and had steak or fish. I just couldn’t have that.

I had my beautiful turkey on a beautiful turkey platter with turkey bowls, platter, napkin holder and even turkey salt and pepper shakers. I was in turkey heaven! My greatnephews and niece were thrilled. They came to my house for Thanksgiving for many years. Sadly, they’ve grown up, married and have inlaws of their own to visit now. On the other hand, I know that they set the standards for all their Thanksgivings by the ones they enjoyed at my house.

I used to feel sorry for parents who had to share their holidays with their children and grandchildrens’ in-laws. Now that my granddaughters have grown up, I have to cope with the same problem. Only I’ve discovered it’s not a problem really. We tried a couple times to have everyone on Thanksgiving Day. That meant my granddaughters and their husbands were trying to fit us, their dad’s house and their inlaws all in the same day. Three massive turkey dinners in one day, spending an hour or so at each house, was not fun.

Now, we pick a day that everyone can come spend the day here. And I make all our favorite dishes and they bring new favorites and the babies play and it’s a day of true thanksgiving.

There is never a gory, bleeding cake anywhere, ever, at my house. A few skeletons and cute pumpkins and ghosts are more than enough to celebrate Halloween – on its day!

Christmas starts the day after Thanksgiving. And I don’t go shopping that day at the big stores. Saturday at hometown stores are a lot more fun.