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gobble gobble
Thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday. the idea of structuring an entire day around a meal makes me antsy and nuts - in my world, food is delicious but eating is something you do in between other things. add to that the four-hour (plus) bus or train ride to Massachusetts, fighting every step of the way with every other person in three adjoining states who's trying to get somewhere, and a two-hour drive to my aunt's home in the wilds of New Hampshire where the same familial scene enacts itself over and over again, year after year, with the only variation being the new husbands sitting around the table.
when I was very little, my mother and aunts and grandparents seemed to get along well. as I got older, I noticed things deteriorating, unspoken anger and sadness and resentment hanging over everyone, and for a few years it was clear that family gatherings were only for appearances. the trend has recently reversed, and the holidays are less of a chore, sometimes even genuinely pleasant, which is nice to see. and yet, every time I head home for Thanksgiving, my mind goes back to six years ago, the worst of the bad holidays. my mother and stepfather and I walked out of my aunt's house to the car, family pressing food on us and waving goodbyes with insincere smiles and well-wishes. we pulled out of the long driveway, my stepfather driving, and onto the winding country road. two minutes later my mother, her voice sharply sarcastic, uttered the best holiday pronouncement ever:
"Well. It was nice of your aunt to serve a turkey basted in venom and stuffed with hate."
I couldn't stop laughing. down the backroads and past the grazing horses and out onto the highway back to my mother's house that held its own imperfect issues, all the way back to New York. it was absurd and true and so very ridiculous, like everything having to do with family and loved ones.
Happy holidays. let the frenzy begin.