Thanksgiving Memories

 

The year is a giant rotating Ferris Wheel bringing each holiday around to us, each occasion residing in one of the gondolas. With Halloween ascending away, the Thanksgiving gondola landed unloading its holiday contents from this enormous spinning wheel of joy and amusement.

The tines punctured my slice of turkey breast covered in gravy, and I used it as a shovel adding mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes as well as peas and carrots along with a dollop of cranberry which melted in my mouth and transported me back to an earlier Thanksgiving…

The memory materialized in my mind, pots and pans were being resurrected from their hiding places and assembled for proper cleaning. These vessels would now be used to create a symphony of smells and tastes for the annual feast. With decorating and cleaning previously completed, the men’s turn involved setting up folding chairs and a card table extension to the usual dining table. The men definitely had the easier task.

 Wonderful overpowering, scintillating smells invaded the cellar. I was drawn up the stairs to the main floor almost floating on a wave of the most wonderful aromas imaginable to see a busy hive of activity with my Mother, Grandmothers and Aunt swirling around each other in a delicate seemingly choreographed ballet, never colliding as the final touches were completed and food put out on the linen covered tables decorated for the occasion. Wine glasses resembling glass tulips with their thin stems, beautiful ceramic bowls, ornate dinner dishes their perimeters painted in a golden halo, crystalline salt and pepper shakers and polished silver utensils brought up to a mirrored shine, covered the tables.

A general announcement was made that the meal was ready and everyone joined the table, finding their seat and participating in a prayer of thanks. 

I had been assigned to the card table, a location of dubious, rickety distinction. Sitting on my folding chair my sister and I kicked our legs back and forth under the table, as the large heavy round plates were placed in front of us.

A mountain of pristine white mashed potatoes, the peaks of which rose to the heavens, accompanied by an orange hill of sweet potatoes crowned my plate. A flow of hot brown lava issued forth down the lofty peaks of potato mountain infusing a gravelly bed of bright green peas and orange carrots which bordered on a felled forest of exotic green asparagus trees and streamed onto the plains of turkey which were nearest to me, along with a cylindrical gelatinous purple lake of cranberry sauce. Stuffing meteors had crashed down on the turkey plains as additional lava gushed over them and the feast began.

The smells and tastes were not a disappointment and everything was delicious. My eyes had proved to be larger than my stomach, resulting in little room having been saved for dessert, which thankfully was put off for a few hours until the meal was digested and all the washing, drying, and storing completed. It was just as well as Mighty Joe Young, followed by The March of the Wooden Soldiers were starting on T.V.

 

Jim

Nov 2020