Thanskgiving
Nov. 13th, 2007 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spookyeviloneThanksgiving in my family has always been a little strange. My mother's Canadian, my father was Native American. Mom grew up celebrating a different sort of Thanksgiving the second week of October and my father's family treats it as any other day, or possibly just another excuse to make pie. When I was growing up - and I have it on good authority, NOT when my older half-siblings were growing up twenty years before I came along- my mother started making a huge deal out of every American holiday. When I asked her about this a few years ago, she explained that as a single parent, she felt a little guilty about how restricted her time with me was, so whenever we both had days off, she tried to make the most of them so I'd always have good memories of our time together.1
Holidays at our house were always kind of amusing, because of the lengths my mother took them to. Christmas was the big one. Mom's family is first generation Welsh/Norwegian immigrants and boy, howdy, do they believe in going to the nines for that holiday. We had to have a tree, and it had to be a fake tree because real cut trees make me sad.2 We had to decorate it, and every year we had to make a new ornament. The Christmas Dinner was larger than the Thanksgiving dinner and covered two days - Christmas Eve and Christmas Day both brunch and dinner. Leading up to Christmas were my birthday, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. My birthday and Halloween usually got combined into one because the weekend works out that way. Thanksgiving.. man.
My mother would spend all week cooking for Thanksgiving. She'd put up jars of refrigerator pickles, bake bread, cornbread and rolls. Pies - never just one pie, because I like pumpkin, my siblings like sweet potato, and my mom liked pecan and she couldn't refrain from pleasing everyone - and invariably one pie would be sacrificed to hungry children in the house. She'd make a huge turkey even when it was just she, my sister, and myself - and I didn't really eat meat, even when I still could. Sometimes, in addition to the turkey, she'd make a ham as well. She'd buy fresh corn and shuck and hull it herself to make creamed corn with. I loathe creamed corn, so there'd be a few regular ears chunked up and roasted just for me. There'd be sweet peas and wax beans. She made green bean casserole and never, ever forgot the little nibbly things on top. There'd be some sort of rice dish, usually wild rice with almonds. There'd be three or more types of potatoes, because I don't eat mashed potatoes, she loved making cheesy potato bake, and I liked just roasted, herbed potato bits. There'd be red cabbage and pickled beets. She'd put up jars of cinnamon apple rings. She'd make fruit cakes and other baked things. There'd be stuffing from the bird and cooked individually, and at least two types of gravy. There'd be cranberry sauce from scratch, made with orange brandy, orange zest, and chopped walnuts, but she also never failed to have at least a small can of Ocean Spray Cranberry Jell.
There's a story behind that. Right after my parents separated, my mother wasn't working and we were on Welfare for several years.3 Welfare, in the 70's, was fucked up and had a list of brands and types of foods you could buy with foodstamps. Real fruit, which included cranberries, was not on that list. Canned was.The first Thanksgiving, when my mother saw the jell sitting there, jiggling and canlike, she tried to squish it down to look like cranberry sauce. It.. didn't. Mom sat in the kitchen and cried. I toddled in and asked what was wrong, and she said the cranberry sauce wasn't right. I was a little freaked out that Mom was crying. She didn't do that. So I took the cranberry sauce into the dining area and had a staring contest with it, trying to figure out why it was wrong. Then I took a bite. Then I ate the entire can of it in one sitting. Toddling back into the kitchen, I handed her the empty bowl and innocently said there wasn't anything wrong with it. My mother looked at the empty bowl and me, sticky with cranberry jell, and just started laughing. "Well, if you'll eat it, Miss Picky, it must be ok." The cranberry jell made an appearance at every other thanksgiving dinner, to not only remind my mom to be thankful she could afford real cranberries but also that sometimes things that seem like huge problems, aren't. (My brother's commentary: Some problems can be efficiently solved by a small child with an iron stomach and large appetite.) I'm the only person in my family who will eat the cranberry jell, and it has to be left can shaped and sliced or it's just not right.
In addition to all the regular food, there had to be bowls of nibbles on the table. There was regular salad and that cold disgusting three bean salad that everyone in the world but me likes. There were olives, and pickled mushrooms, and midget dill pickles. At least three types of spreads for bread including homemade apple butter were on the table at all times. And then there were the desserts. The aforementioned pies and baked goods, likely homemade tapioca pudding or rice or bread pudding - sometimes all three, molded jello salad, fruit salad, and gods know what else.
All this.. because that's how my mother assumed American Thanksgiving dinners were supposed to be, and since I was the one child of hers born in America, she wanted to give me its traditions. We could hardly eat at the table, because there wasn't room for the plates - and that was with the turkey and most of the baked goods taking up the stovetop and counters. When my mom worked at the Family Violence Network, we hosted at least one and sometimes two families from the battered spouse shelters for the holiday. I was always glad to see them, because a) yay good deeds, b) it meant the leftovers went home with someone else.
When I moved out on my own, I'd occasionally host orphan's dinners, because I could. I like to cook, other people like to eat. I make damn good turkey and I can't eat it now.4 Usually I found an excuse to go home, because my mother got sad when I wasn't around for Turkey Day.
The holiday itself, I don't celebrate. The more my mother disappears into dementia, the more frantic I get to keep these little silly things she did alive. I think part of it is so I can tell her about it. I don't know how much she remembers, or how much of what I'm saying she can understand anymore, but I like to think she can. It's important to me that she knows I'm thankful for the memories she gave me.
1 That, right there, is why I get so fucking furious when people give me the pity voice when I say I was raised in a single parent household, and why I go for the throat when people say single people shouldn't be allowed to adopt. Because I grew up in a single parent household where my one parent, who worked full time at a fairly low-paying job, did a better job than most two parent middle-class homes. She worked hard at being a good parent, which is more than a lot of people do.
2 Yes, I'm a dirtworshipping hippy and always have been. I don't see the point in killing a tree - or killing flowers, for that matter - for holidays. I either do live, tiny christmas trees in pots or fake trees. I had a complete hysterical meltdown the first time my mom took me out to pick out a tree to be cut down and I realized it meant the tree would die. I was 2. The reaction hasn't gotten any better, I still hate the unnecessary and pointless death of trees.
3 My mother found out rather rudely that having her prior work experience all be in Canada and having been a stay at home mom for 3 years meant she was unemployable during the Reganomic era.
4 Yes, I'm a vegetarian, because my stomach won't digest meat. Granted, it would probably also be by choice by now even if my tum hadn't turned against me, because I loathe and despise factory farms and the horrible methods they use. My family hunts. Our turkeys, and most of our other meat, were either hunted ourselves or bought from local farmers or other hunters. I have no problem with people eating animals, my problem is with the animals being starved or pumped full of chemicals and tortured before they're killed. And I also think people who use guns to hunt, or compound bows, are cheaters. YMMV.
(reposted from $Other_Journal and refined to get the angst out.)
Holidays at our house were always kind of amusing, because of the lengths my mother took them to. Christmas was the big one. Mom's family is first generation Welsh/Norwegian immigrants and boy, howdy, do they believe in going to the nines for that holiday. We had to have a tree, and it had to be a fake tree because real cut trees make me sad.2 We had to decorate it, and every year we had to make a new ornament. The Christmas Dinner was larger than the Thanksgiving dinner and covered two days - Christmas Eve and Christmas Day both brunch and dinner. Leading up to Christmas were my birthday, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. My birthday and Halloween usually got combined into one because the weekend works out that way. Thanksgiving.. man.
My mother would spend all week cooking for Thanksgiving. She'd put up jars of refrigerator pickles, bake bread, cornbread and rolls. Pies - never just one pie, because I like pumpkin, my siblings like sweet potato, and my mom liked pecan and she couldn't refrain from pleasing everyone - and invariably one pie would be sacrificed to hungry children in the house. She'd make a huge turkey even when it was just she, my sister, and myself - and I didn't really eat meat, even when I still could. Sometimes, in addition to the turkey, she'd make a ham as well. She'd buy fresh corn and shuck and hull it herself to make creamed corn with. I loathe creamed corn, so there'd be a few regular ears chunked up and roasted just for me. There'd be sweet peas and wax beans. She made green bean casserole and never, ever forgot the little nibbly things on top. There'd be some sort of rice dish, usually wild rice with almonds. There'd be three or more types of potatoes, because I don't eat mashed potatoes, she loved making cheesy potato bake, and I liked just roasted, herbed potato bits. There'd be red cabbage and pickled beets. She'd put up jars of cinnamon apple rings. She'd make fruit cakes and other baked things. There'd be stuffing from the bird and cooked individually, and at least two types of gravy. There'd be cranberry sauce from scratch, made with orange brandy, orange zest, and chopped walnuts, but she also never failed to have at least a small can of Ocean Spray Cranberry Jell.
There's a story behind that. Right after my parents separated, my mother wasn't working and we were on Welfare for several years.3 Welfare, in the 70's, was fucked up and had a list of brands and types of foods you could buy with foodstamps. Real fruit, which included cranberries, was not on that list. Canned was.The first Thanksgiving, when my mother saw the jell sitting there, jiggling and canlike, she tried to squish it down to look like cranberry sauce. It.. didn't. Mom sat in the kitchen and cried. I toddled in and asked what was wrong, and she said the cranberry sauce wasn't right. I was a little freaked out that Mom was crying. She didn't do that. So I took the cranberry sauce into the dining area and had a staring contest with it, trying to figure out why it was wrong. Then I took a bite. Then I ate the entire can of it in one sitting. Toddling back into the kitchen, I handed her the empty bowl and innocently said there wasn't anything wrong with it. My mother looked at the empty bowl and me, sticky with cranberry jell, and just started laughing. "Well, if you'll eat it, Miss Picky, it must be ok." The cranberry jell made an appearance at every other thanksgiving dinner, to not only remind my mom to be thankful she could afford real cranberries but also that sometimes things that seem like huge problems, aren't. (My brother's commentary: Some problems can be efficiently solved by a small child with an iron stomach and large appetite.) I'm the only person in my family who will eat the cranberry jell, and it has to be left can shaped and sliced or it's just not right.
In addition to all the regular food, there had to be bowls of nibbles on the table. There was regular salad and that cold disgusting three bean salad that everyone in the world but me likes. There were olives, and pickled mushrooms, and midget dill pickles. At least three types of spreads for bread including homemade apple butter were on the table at all times. And then there were the desserts. The aforementioned pies and baked goods, likely homemade tapioca pudding or rice or bread pudding - sometimes all three, molded jello salad, fruit salad, and gods know what else.
All this.. because that's how my mother assumed American Thanksgiving dinners were supposed to be, and since I was the one child of hers born in America, she wanted to give me its traditions. We could hardly eat at the table, because there wasn't room for the plates - and that was with the turkey and most of the baked goods taking up the stovetop and counters. When my mom worked at the Family Violence Network, we hosted at least one and sometimes two families from the battered spouse shelters for the holiday. I was always glad to see them, because a) yay good deeds, b) it meant the leftovers went home with someone else.
When I moved out on my own, I'd occasionally host orphan's dinners, because I could. I like to cook, other people like to eat. I make damn good turkey and I can't eat it now.4 Usually I found an excuse to go home, because my mother got sad when I wasn't around for Turkey Day.
The holiday itself, I don't celebrate. The more my mother disappears into dementia, the more frantic I get to keep these little silly things she did alive. I think part of it is so I can tell her about it. I don't know how much she remembers, or how much of what I'm saying she can understand anymore, but I like to think she can. It's important to me that she knows I'm thankful for the memories she gave me.
1 That, right there, is why I get so fucking furious when people give me the pity voice when I say I was raised in a single parent household, and why I go for the throat when people say single people shouldn't be allowed to adopt. Because I grew up in a single parent household where my one parent, who worked full time at a fairly low-paying job, did a better job than most two parent middle-class homes. She worked hard at being a good parent, which is more than a lot of people do.
2 Yes, I'm a dirtworshipping hippy and always have been. I don't see the point in killing a tree - or killing flowers, for that matter - for holidays. I either do live, tiny christmas trees in pots or fake trees. I had a complete hysterical meltdown the first time my mom took me out to pick out a tree to be cut down and I realized it meant the tree would die. I was 2. The reaction hasn't gotten any better, I still hate the unnecessary and pointless death of trees.
3 My mother found out rather rudely that having her prior work experience all be in Canada and having been a stay at home mom for 3 years meant she was unemployable during the Reganomic era.
4 Yes, I'm a vegetarian, because my stomach won't digest meat. Granted, it would probably also be by choice by now even if my tum hadn't turned against me, because I loathe and despise factory farms and the horrible methods they use. My family hunts. Our turkeys, and most of our other meat, were either hunted ourselves or bought from local farmers or other hunters. I have no problem with people eating animals, my problem is with the animals being starved or pumped full of chemicals and tortured before they're killed. And I also think people who use guns to hunt, or compound bows, are cheaters. YMMV.
(reposted from $Other_Journal and refined to get the angst out.)