Thanksgiving. It’s one of those holidays where we always want it to be like a Hallmark Movie only if we’re real, sometimes it’s not.

When I think of awkward Thanksgiving meals, I think of the time I went to my friend’s family celebration at Merion Cricket Club. Now I will admit going out for Thanksgiving to a restaurant or a club is weird for me. I like cooking Thanksgiving dinner. But this one year I was a singleton so I went to this particular celebration.

Now this was old Merion before all the updating on the decorating. It looked really pretty. The dining room was still the old dining room. We were in the room next to the dining room on the other side of the hall. I got seated next to an overly friendly older relative. As in mid to late 70s. Let’s just call it and “oh grandpa please moment.”

We’ve all had awkward moments, but trust me, nothing worse than being seated at a holiday meal next to a uncomfortably friendly relative of the one who invited you and you have to sit there politely with a smile plastered on your face wishing that this old dude would just stop. It was so awful I was embarrassed for him.

Then there are the miscellaneous memories of Thanksgiving growing up. One time at the old Greenhouse restaurant in Radnor. They cooked your group your own turkey and you took the leftovers home. They served your party family style. That was the year we had more house guests than room to fit them in the dining room.

When I was really little I remember Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle’s house up in Northeast Philadelphia. Both of my mother’s parents were alive back then. It was crowded but alive and fun, which was definitely not the feeling one got at my late father’s sister’s house. Those were the obligatory not so much fun and lots of frosty pretense Thanksgivings where the toilet seat in the powder room was as chilly as the lack of heat in the house and the personality of my father’s family who hosted.

There were plenty of super joyful Thanksgivings growing up. I have memories of ones in Philadelphia and hysterical laughing over how long was that god damned turkey going to take? Being with family friends in Summit, NJ and Bethesda, MD and more. A kaleidoscope of happy memories and voices of those now gone I can still see in my head, especially memories of Mrs. C in her kitchen. And the eventuality of my sister and I hosting Thanksgiving feasts.

Then there were the purgatory years for me. Many moons ago, I was in a different and looking back, a honestly difficult and terrible relationship. I would have to make the trek with someone who shall not be named because they don’t deserve it up to parts much further west.

The holidays including Thanksgivings I liked because that sister-in-law of this person and her mom set a beautiful table and made such an effort over every guest.

The holidays, including Thanksgiving at his sister’s were another story.

First of all, let’s talk about the ugly brown crockery plates that always showed up as “good china.” Maybe I am being a snob, but somehow I really don’t want to eat dinner on plates that seem to be the color of dirt do you? and then there was the fact that the turkey was served in the cheap tinfoil container it went into the oven with. And these were the holidays where everybody stood around with the superiority of misfits and malcontents, and basically criticized anyone who wasn’t there, sort of defeating the point of the holiday, right?

The other thing about those purgatory years were the car rides. Essentially a lot of each ride coming and going I was yelled at in a closed space. It was abusive. And I wasn’t answering back. I just sat there, hoping it would stop….for almost a decade. Abuse towards women takes all forms and they all matter, don’t they? To this day, I have I think a form of PTSD from this and a definite aversion to loud, bullying mansplaining.

And during those years I worked really hard to just participate, contributing food, etc. it was always wasted on those people, but I did get a chance to work on my recipes so it wasn’t all bad and the dogs were nice, as well as the kids at the time. From those years, I had the takeaway of what I did not want the rest of my life to look like.

Like I keep saying, I actually like cooking Thanksgiving. Sometimes I think it’s just to have turkey sandwiches the day after.

I know people don’t like preparing for Thanksgiving because of the work. And yes, it is work, but happy faces around the table enjoying the meal are worth it. but that doesn’t mean we’re all getting our Hallmark families for the holidays. So we make the best of it some years. As humans we are flawed, even the mean-spirited, whom it’s hard to give grace to. But hey, they wake up the next day as miserable as they were on Thanksgiving and that’s its own kind of penance.

Thanksgiving is historically a day where it is not about one upsmanship and pretense. It’s about being thankful and grateful.

It began as a day of giving thanks for the blessings of the harvest. It began as a day of giving, thanks between the original residents of this country, the Native Americans, and the immigrants, reaching these shores for a better way of life and certain freedoms.

Now it is still supposed to be that, only we seem to be evolving into a country that doesn’t represent what the Pilgrims and founding fathers intended. We seem to have become what they left Europe over and fought a revolution for?

How do we get back to the goodness in this country? I am not saying goodness doesn’t exist, it just seems to be in hiding, doesn’t it?

I wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving. Don’t expect it to be perfect, just enjoy the people you are with and the once a year deliciousness (hopefully) of the dinner. Support local businesses on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday.

Try to be kind to one and other and pray for a day when we wake up to the current being an American nightmare.

My dinner won’t cook itself sadly, so Happy Thanksgiving and signing off.

xo,

Carla

(for those who still do not think I am a real person and I play records backwards for hidden messages.)