À la Sandy

It’s Monday evening and I finished all my grocery shopping for Thanksgiving this afternoon.  Tomorrow I’ll prepare the Braunschweiger Paté and Roquefort Cheese Ball for Thursday. Wednesday, I’ll brine the turkey and make all the desserts. Thanksgiving morning, I’ll be up at 5:00 am, prepping the turkey, side dishes and putting the finishing touches on the day’s festivities.  All the groceries are put away and I’m relaxing with a glass of white wine, some of THAT cheese and a few crackers.

Someone asked me earlier this week here on my blog, if I’d be willing to share my favorite Thanksgiving traditions.  I don’t know where to start.  There have been so many over the years, but they’ve changed…with beloved family members passing away and others, growing up and moving away.

Years ago, when I was a little girl, we spent our Thanksgivings with my mom’s side of the family.  Her family and all her extended family, moved here to Southern California from Arkansas in the 50s.  They spread out, throughout the southland to Los Angeles, San Diego, with a large percent of them setting up digs in Yucaipa, CA.

Each year, the families took turns hosting Thanksgiving, so we were usually driving somewhere early that morning.  I remember being so excited each year, to see all my cousins and aunts and uncles, who we hadn’t seen throughout the year.  All my cousins were my age and we looked forward to proving to each other, how much we had grown the past year!  When we became teenagers, it became even more important to prove how many street smarts we had acquired and how “cool” we had become.

My dad, brother, all my uncles, second uncles, and pretty much all the males of the family used to participate in the annual “Turkey Bowl,” a “touch football” game (that inevitably ended in “tackle football”) played at the local high school football field.   The women and all the girls, used to stay home and cook, gossip and worry about which man would get hurt – Every year there were injuries and trips to the E.R.!

My mom and her three brothers adapted to the California lifestyle easily, as they were young when they came here. By the time they were adults they had all but lost their southern accents, but the older family members never lost sight of their southern roots.  Some bought farms in Yucaipa (when it was mostly farmland), raised pigs (for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners), had fruit orchards AND secretly made “moonshine” behind the back barn!  I remember many a Thanksgiving in Yucaipa, when moonshine got the better of one or more of my great uncles. Once, a fistfight broke out between them and my mom and dad swooped me up and into the car… making a mad dash home.  Once, my great uncle, Johnny, imbibed a bit too much and drove his car into the screened-in porch of my Granny’s house! Again, mom and dad swooped me up in their arms, into the car…and made a mad dash home!

Years later, after many of those family members had passed, my mom took over Thanksgiving hosting duties.  These were some of my favorite memories.  I had a young family of my own by then and we would load up the kids and make the drive to her house early Thursday morning.  There was always a store-bought cheese ball on the table upon our arrival and the smell of Thanksgiving was everywhere!  My mom was remarried by then and her husband, Paul, made the most divine dressing ever!  He would come around the corner and signal for us to come into the kitchen to sample a taste. He would always ask, “does it need anything?” KNOWING already it was perfection…. he knew how good it was, he just wanted to show off – a tradition AND recipe I stole from him and use every year!

After an amazing dinner, we’d settle in for “game time” – usually Poker or Trivial Pursuit, my mom at the head of the table, Paul at the other head, both of them a little toasted from all the wine, ecstatic to have all their family surrounding them….”conducting” music to the soundtrack of “Amadeus.“  Those were the happiest days of their lives, I suspect.

Now it’s Thanksgiving 2009 – I have no idea where the time went, because it was just yesterday that I was running through the orchards in Yucaipa, with my cousins, stopping every so often to play a game of “Truth or Dare.”

I’ve had the honor of hosting Thanksgiving for about 20 years now. Both my parents and my husband’s have passed to the other side, many other family members, as well – including some amazing and beloved dogs!  I don’t dwell on those losses very much throughout the year, but on Thanksgiving they are all here with me….I feel my Mom’s approval, as I’m cleaning the bird at 5:00 in the morning, my Dad winking at me for a job well done, my stepfather guiding me as I chop chicken livers for “his” dressing recipe, my father-in-law, who used to sneak in and eat all the dressing, before it ever made it to the Thanksgiving table; and my adorable dog, Calvin, who once jumped on the table, stole a turkey leg, hid in the laundry room to eat it, then turned into “Cujo”, when I tried to get it back!

The hours from 5:00 am to 7:00 am on Thanksgiving morning are the most precious of my whole year, every year.  It’s still and dark outside and my kitchen is filled with the spirits of ALL my departed loved ones.  I reflect on all my treasured memories of an era that will never be again – at the same time, anticipating the sheer joy when my kids will walk through the door!

We’ll eat cheese balls and patés; I’ll lure everyone into the kitchen to tease them with a “sample” of Paul’s famous dressing; we’ll recite lines from our favorite Thanksgiving movie, “Avalon” (which isn’t technically a Thanksgiving movie – just a beautiful film about the importance of family). My son will “Cut the Toykey” (a line from Avalon), we’ll eat way too much; clear the dishes and make room for the most important part of the day – “game time.”  I’ll be a little toasted, sitting at the head of the table, “conducting” to whatever music is on my iPod playlist – happier than I’ve been all year, surrounded by my family and all the people I love!  That’s why Thanksgiving IS ~ and ALWAYS will be, my favorite holiday.