November 24th, 2023. Happy Thanksgiving.

I don’t know that I can truly understand people for whom Thanksgiving was so imbued by cultural meaning and imagery that they’re mortally offended by its continued existence. Our concepts of holidays and holy days are so far divorced from their original meanings, owned, disowned or otherwise, it seems silly to get pedantic about their True Meaning. In a capitalist society, where these celebrations’ imagery are literally owned and sold and resold, the very root of our culture is a constant effort to eliminate the offensiveness and water down the meaning to sell it to the widest customer base possible.

And so, Thanksgiving doesn’t seem to be rife with Pilgrim Hats and stereotypes of absolutely-not-Indian heritage as much as it used to – and we certainly don’t carry that into our OWN celebrations and giving of thanks. Being pickier and pickier about our Thanksgiving Gathering means that we don’t even have the Racist Uncle trope to deal with. A moment of prayer comes and goes and somehow I was able to bear it.

Honestly, anything that inspires people to give and bring one another together, even simply in lip-service of community and family, isn’t really a bad thing.

You can be angry tomorrow. All the same problems will be there.

Thanksgiving this year, since I’m away from home and not on a tour, has given me some thinking time. Some memory-delving time.

Childhood Thanksgiving and Christmas are very entwined in my mind, and it’s absolutely possible that my memories of one are conflated with memories of the other. Throughout my childhood, both consisted of going to my mom’s parents’ home in Hyattsville, MD. I thought of it as Grandma’s house. It was HER personality that certainly stamped the house. Her gardens and pathways, built by my grandfather, but maintained by her. The densely-packed house, every hallway half the width it should’ve been, crowded with shelves and display cases and dollhouses…

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I haven’t even gotten my parents in the car yet, and that’s always an ordeal. My brother and I are EAGER to go – we’re always horribly aware of the time that’s written on the big PGCC calendar on the pantry door ticking closer, and George and I have BEEN READY for EVER and mom and dad are puttering and still getting ready and mom’s putting on perfume and dad’s working on one last thing and my brother and I are freaking out because we’re GOING TO BE LATE.

And we were always late. After spending 15 or 20 minutes in the car, dodging holiday traffic, the feeling of LATENESS amplified by DARKNESS, worrying that something’s going to spill, something’s going to get ruined in the drive, we’d arrive and we’d see lots of other relatives’ cars up and down the block. My grandparents’ house was on a corner, and we’d often be late enough that we had to park around back the house. We’d be in my dad’s big blue van after having lost the illogical argument to drive over in the Jaguar or the Austin Healey (neither of which would’ve fit all of us plus food and / or presents). We’d be in conflict with overflow parking from the church up on the hill. We’d see Grandpa’s big white car out front, and I have memories of Uncle Eugene having some sort of big muscle car and Uncle Marty having some sort of work van. Uncle George had a minivan once he got married. Later on all the cars multiplied as my myriad cousins drove themselves.

The thorny brown bushes all around the yard, the creak of the old wooden, roughly-painted, flaking white front gate, spring loaded and slamming shut behind us. Up the stairs and to the cold metal screen door. Unable to see in because of how foggy the front window was. Pulling open the metal and plastic front door and television and conversation and steam and family pouring out onto us. Diving in.

It was always dense because we were always late – in later years – arriving sans that WALL of welcome wasn’t nearly as interesting and it turned out that my parents (as usual) had been right all along. You walk the gauntlet of everyone’s greetings, pulling their feet in so you can get past. The sofa on one side, people packed on to chairs and the piano bench on the other. Who was lucky enough to get Grandpa’s chair? It’s never grandpa. Struggle back past that big easy chair – if it was a cousin sitting in the easy chair you’d find some excuse to shove it a little bit as you edged past into the narrow hall, back to the back of the house to take off your coat and throw it on the bed.

Deep breath.

I remember that my grandmother’s kitchen lights were yellowish, the kitchen had lots of rounded edges and a sink that was smaller than it should’ve been. She had a white and black dog (ironically) named Prince who was always in the way in the kitchen. Inverse to my mom’s black and white dog (Hey You) who was always in the way in the kitchen at home. The window from the kitchen looked out into her tiny little greenhouse / storage shed which meant it didn’t look out to anywhere at all. We’d often leave the back door open, which let cool air into the dining room that didn’t actually quite make it into the kitchen. I remember learning to dislike green beans with almond slivers, and Loving the ham and the turkey and the mashed potatoes and my grandmother’s big mixer that left delicious chunky lumps in the mashed potatoes and SO much butter. I don’t remember pies (and I remember disliking pies) and I don’t remember cranberry sauce (though I also remember disliking cranberry sauce). I remember the old, big telephone with the immensely long, curly phone cord and calling Aunt Laurie and Uncle Greg, who Lived far away and never joined us for Thanksgiving dinner, and passing the phone around from family-member to family-member. Strange to remember it now, there was a long, fold out, National Geographic illustration of the planets of the solar system taped up next to the phone.

Calling Kristen’s Dad from Thanksgiving dinner last night, putting him on speaker phone and chatting and realizing that Kids Today will never know the weird warmth and slickness of a 1970’s / 80’s / early-90’s telephone earpiece cupping weirdly to their ear, and they should be grateful that they’ll never know the strange moist warmth of receiving that phone from another family member “talk to your Uncle and wish them a Happy Thanksgiving” and surreptitiously wiping it on your pants leg before putting it to your ear.

Heh. I remember early in high school, so in Love with my girlfriend it was hard to be away from her for Thanksgiving break, calling her from my grandma’s kitchen in the midst of it all, struggling with that huge phone cord in the hopeless hope of privacy.

Just other memory points : Grandma Boseck had a brace of some sort on her phone, so it fit weirdly against your shoulder. There was a stool right next to the phone, but you were often pulling the cord round other people and through the room to other points, somehow it never got into the food. Watching a tornado from the back door of grandma’s (but that was a summer memory). Her refrigerator always had popsicles in it, and cheap Neapolitan ice cream that my brother liked, but it felt like there was always strawberry touching the chocolate so I did NOT like it…

Thanksgiving Day is so much more relaxed now than it was growing up. Only one flavour of ice cream. More self-determination as it comes to timing. The cold outside and the steam-covered windows on the inside is the same. Warm yellow light and too many people in the kitchen, but in a good way.

35+ years later, it’s just Kristen’s sister and her family, Kristen’s mom and me and Kristen. A lot less madness. Only one phone call. A weird song was sung. There was one hand-holding prayer kind of situation that actually brought so many of those other memories flooding back and it was the realization that next to me was a kid and now *I* was the weird old uncle that she hadn’t seen in four years and she had to hold hands as her dad gave thanks…

We watched the Thanksgiving parade, which was way better than the childhood experience where The Game would’ve been on the whole day. Other memories of uncles and my dad talking about the stock market and avoiding politics. Aunts and my grandmother in the kitchen. My mom and my grandfather playing with the younger kids. Me and the similar-aged cousins running around outside.

After dinner last night, there’s no mention of the stock market. Few mentions of politics. We talk about orthopedic shoes and memories and video games and board games. One of my fondest memories: post-holiday dinner we hoped Uncle George would break out the Dark Tower, a weird fantasy board game with an electronic tower thing in the middle that made sounds and determined your FATE that I think has found its way into the Journal before – we probably only ever played once or twice – and then Uncle George always begged off because it was too much trouble to set up. It would’ve been a fun addition to last night!

I look it up, you can find the original on eBay in varying degrees of condition for about $400. You can find the “remake” / sequel for $200 and it’s iOS only. Bah.

Thanksgiving ruined.

I think growing up Thanksgiving and Christmas ended in fits of exhaustion for the kids. I honestly barely remember ever leaving. I remember falling asleep on the drive home. Cold van window on my cheek, pretending to be SOLIDLY asleep pulling into the driveway in the hopes that Dad would carry me in.

This year, I’m grateful not to have to go ANYWHERE. We just retreat to the basement. Huddle under the blankets hoping that we ate JUST ENOUGH and not too much, gurgling a bit.

I like my bite-sized family. Grandpa and grandma and mom and dad and my brother and Uncle Marty and Little Marty and Jason and Janine and Rachel and Uncle George and Aunt Penny and Jeb and Uncle Eugene and me and whoever else was too much for that little house! Trying to imagine it now, realizing that my grandmother’s house’s footprint was closer to my Baltimore townhouse than Kristen’s mom’s place with its nice wide Living room… Grandma’s kitchen was wider than ours, but not by much, and her dining room was tiny…

Strange memory hole. I’m glad there’s so much of it.

Last notes :
My grandma said my brother’s name oddly. I don’t remember much of an accent, though she was precise in her speech. She was from Chicago and though my mother always amplified her Chicago-isms, the only thing I remember about Grandma’s pronunciations was “Chorch” rather that “George”.

Kristen’s mom is extremely hard-of-hearing – and our little phone transcription apps go a LONG way towards making conversations more possible. My grandfather was always very quiet and years later it became clear that a lot of that was probably because he couldn’t hear much of what was going on around him. Technology is amazing. I wish I’d had it for Grandpa.