Memories of Thanksgiving Past

pi
I don't remember any Holiday dinners at anyone's house except ours. I'm sure there were but none were as memorable.

My mom was never a very good cook. When she cooked any meat it had to be well done. Not the well done that falls off the bone but the well done that is so dry you needed some sort of gravy, applesauce, or mashed potatoes to dip it in so you could get it down your throat. The vegetables were what fell apart. There was no texture to them. They were  mostly mush usually filled with bacon grease. I had always wished my dad would do all the cooking. He did the breakfast meals but never dinner unless it was on the grill.

UH...before I get too distracted ........this is what I remember of our "traditional" Thanksgiving dinner.

Our dining room table seemed to me to fit the whole world around it. I guess in a sense this was my whole world. My granddad was always at the head of the table. Even when my other grandparents were there, they deferred to him. Grandma sat to his left and my Aunt Addie (my mom's sister) sat to his right. The rest of the seating, as far as I remember, was random. I don't remember ever sitting at the "kids table". They got stuck in the kitchen far away from all the excitement.

Pistachio salad....looks like puke to me

The dinner consisted of : Turkey dry as dirt, dressing, pistachio salad (which we all hated), Chocolate Pie (because dad demanded it), Lemon Pie (because mom couldn't live without it), the rest were just random vegetables. Our table was boisterous and loud. My granddad slopping his food in his mouth like a hog dying of starvation. My grandmother's continuous hisses of "Richard! Stop!". My mother's incessant jabbering of who has pissed her off and who is going to send the cheapest Christmas presents this year and the constant yelling from dining room to kitchen at the kids to "stop playing and finish eating."

  unusual? I found an article the crying chair.

The most vivid memory that I have, though, is of  my Aunt Addie. She sat in what we have forever labeled "the crying chair." None of us could ever figure out what would set her off, we just knew it was always going to happen. It would start with a sniffle and a tear, soon becoming racking sobs with her embarrassed giggles in between.

It became a great fascination of mine. I would try to figure out when and why it would happen. I never could. I was also terrified of that chair. In my  family you could be pissed, loud, and/or obnoxious but crying was not allowed. Today, I realize that Aunt Addie was the emotional one in the family.

myself with my extended family

When I met The Engineer, I found a very different way of celebrating a Holiday.  Smiles, conversation and good cheer! There was no yelling, cursing, or cut downs. There was no crying, dry turkey, or pistachio salad.

Gigi (the Engineer's mom) would create ambrosia. To have lasagna or a rib roast for dinner was the norm in this Italian family. The vegetables were crisp and seasoned with herbs and a bit of butter. There were no turkeys. There was no kids table. If the whole family was in town, we would head over  to the beach cottage, food packed in cars, where a table could accommodate the 4 siblings, their wives and all the kids.

The family sat around the table each year and reminisced about Holiday's past. There was always some story about The Engineer or one of his brothers There was plenty of wine and after dinner drinks to go round but there were no crazy drunks. (Drinking wasn't allowed at our home because of the obnoxious drunks in our family).

Today, our traditional dinner is a blend of both our families,I suppose. We sometimes have the destroyers (crazy obnoxious 'substant abusers') and we sometimes have the reminiscing family stories. We have the yelling and the smiles. We have the traditionally dry turkey and the Italian Lasagna. I strive for ambrosia but sometimes don't succeed. No one complains too much...........

We left behind the kids table, the pistachio salad and most importantly "the crying chair."