17 - A Thanksgiving Post…
I hate Thanksgiving.
Let me rewind a bit. When my husband and I first married, I wasn’t a very good cook. We were hosting a dinner at our apartment the weekend before for the youth group. It was a big deal that I was making a turkey. Wish I had known how long it takes to thaw one of those puppies!
Back then, rolls came already made. Stuffing came from a box. Green beans came from a can. Pies came from the frozen food section. I made mashed potatoes from scratch, but that’s because I grew up making them.
Over the years, those things slowly went away. I could no longer start our sweet potato recipe with a large can. I had to figure out how to cook fresh potatoes enough to give the texture of canned, so I could continue with the recipe. Fancy, frozen rolls that rose as they thawed were no longer allowed. I had to make my own. And then dice half of them to make stuffing with celery and onions. Pecan pie has everything in it that we can’t have: pecans, wheat, corn syrup. How to make pumpkin pie without eggs?
I hate to admit that I still have meltdowns, but they are becoming less.
Planning is key to survival. And I start early. Not, “Wow! You’re amazing for being so organized” early. More like, “Holy shit! Thanksgiving is next month and I better get my butt in gear” early.
First, I plan it out in my head, then I talk to everyone. Turkey? Gotta have turkey. Mashed potatoes? Kid 1: “Mashed potatoes are my favorite part of thanksgiving.” You and me both, sister! Too bad I can’t eat them. But that’s ok. I’ll make them. Someone else just has to be the taste tester. All kids raise hands to volunteer. Can we cut out the stuffing? Kid 2: “My favorite part of thanksgiving is the stuffing.” Are you kidding me?? Ok, we’ll have stuffing. I’ll find some gluten-/corn-/soy-/dairy-/egg-free bread. What about pie… Does anyone really like pie? Kid 3: “That’s my most favorite part of thanksgiving. I wait all year for pumpkin pie.” Shit! Kid 4 doesn’t care what we have, so I make him the bartender.
T-5 days till Thanksgiving
Make a menu. Under each item, list all ingredients.
T-4 days till Thanksgiving
After a restless night of sleep, husband helpfully suggests that I am getting too worked up about Thanksgiving. “It’s just one meal.”
After he scrapes me off the ceiling with a spatula, I get to work cutting bread into cubes and drying in a low-temp oven. After years of making stuffing from scratch, I wonder if it’s possible to make it taste like Stove Top stuffing. A website promises me that it does. I email myself the recipe and move on.
I make a list of things that need done tomorrow.
T-3 days till Thanksgiving
Do everything on my list:
Call store and see if preorder turkeys are in. They are, so I drag my boys with me.
Check drink recipes and make sure I have everything (last week I bought some juice from memory…not smart on my part).
Check menu and make sure I have everything, add to grocery list if missing.
Make flour (my flour is in the recipe section)
Sift flour
Make sugar cookie turkey (I saw it on Pinterest).
(Added last minute) Realize the bread I used to make cubes yesterday actually has egg in it (I don’t make everyone in my family eat GF bread on a regular basis), and I can’t find the other brand that is free of everything, so I have to make bread for stuffing today.
I crossed out making sugar cookies when I realized I needed to make bread.
***This is where I am***
Tomorrow will be spent making the bread cubes…again. And making a brine for the turkey.
I think I will also make the pie crusts tomorrow. Can I freeze them? Should I just stick in the fridge?
Wednesday, my daughter flies home. I’m looking forward to that. The rest of the day will be prepping: peeling potatoes and covering with water, actually making the pies, chop the celery and onion for the stuffing…
All for one meal.
I think the problem is that I can barely focus on one task, one project, at a time. Trying to cook chicken and vegetables for dinner, and planning for them both to be done at the same time, is difficult for me. Now try to plan a dinner that includes seven items, all needing space on the stove top, or in the oven, at the same time. Even if I use a crockpot, some things need to made at the end (gravy). It’s just overwhelming.
How can I make this better?
It just occurred to me that I hate Thanksgiving so much, and have hated it for so many years, that it’s an automatic response for me. Even though I was becoming a better cook, the meal (with all its substitutions) got harder.
At the grocery store, the lady in front of me and the cashier were talking about how much they both loved the holiday. “How can you hate it? It’s all about food!” They both laughed. I snorted and rolled my eyes before plastering on a smile for my turn.
Maybe I dread that it is going to be bad, because I have already decided that it is going to be bad.
And in my defense, Thanksgiving has been hard in the past. No one helps as much as they say they will. Timings are off. Ingredients get misplaced.
Everyone says it’s about the family and not the food, but, come on! It’s about the food!
Isn’t it?
Maybe this year I will step back a little. I think it’s good that I plan, it’s the only way to pull this off! But, perhaps, instead of Thanksgiving being all about the food, it really is about the fact that we are all together. Our family, like yours, has experienced hardships in the past. We’ve gone through tough times. We’ve been physically separated.
But this year, for four days, we’ll be together.
My daughter will be able to harass her “little” brothers in person. My husband and my son will have coordinating days off. We’ll be able to play board and card games like we used to. If I choose to stop and listen, I will hear laughter. This is special.
And I am thankful.