Thanksgiving - it puts the FUN in dysfunctional!

Sunday 26 November

Another nod to my friend Betty for reminding me about my favorite part of the Thanksgiving holiday...wacky friends and relatives imprisoned together in an overheated house and forced to make nice for the sake of...whatever.

It's amazing how many articles are devoted to this very subject as we careen headlong into that period between Thanksgiving and New Year that brings out the best, and worst, in all of us.

This from last Wednesday's NY Times:
"Cooks can control the Thanksgiving menu, but when the dishes leave the kitchen, things can unravel fast. Family grudges buried by time and distance resurface. New girlfriends meet ex-husbands. Prius drivers make small talk with S.U.V. owners. And vegans spend the meal defending themselves."

I don't think of myself as having a dysfunctional family. Certainly my immediate family is "normal" for the most part and we actually enjoy spending time with each other. But when one looks below the surface there are little, quirks shall we say, that are revealed...

For years my Aunt Rosie prepared the Thanksgiving feast at her place, a double-wide stuck in the middle of the woods. It was crowded and fuggy but we made the most of it and generally had a great time. She was a very good cook and dinner was always the American traditional: a huge turkey, quivering can-shaped cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, stuffing, giblet gravy, green bean/crispy onion casserole, sweet potatoes with a thick marshmallow crust, fruit salad, at least one color of "suspended" jello salad (often more), uncle Walt's homemade rolls, and a plethora of home-canned pickles and preserves. Dessert was always pumpkin pie plus extras such as apple pie, berry cobbler, pumpkin cheesecake or whatever inspired the rest of us. Aunt Lynnette always brought her gelled Krab salad for an appetizer and Rosie always had bowls of Nuts 'n Bolts for snacking.

Rosie's husband Walt was a grouch, and every year he would decide to "fix" something and inevitably screw it up, usually permanently. One year he ruined my guitar, another year he broke my parents' tape player. We learned to keep all things of value out of his hands.

My cousin Stan could be counted on to massively put his foot in his mouth about nearly every subject. My uncle Paul and aunt Lynnette would sit on the porch chain-smoking, hacking violently and guzzling beers. The smokers always "forgot" to shut the door all the way so that disgusting smoke would waft inside to irritate us, especially my Grandma who was never at a loss to express her opinion about that, or any, subject.

Our cousins by marriage (Walt's girls) were white trash of the highest magnitude and were absolutely reliable for providing entertainment in the form of skanky boyfriends, ill-behaved thieving children, slutty and frumpy clothing (different sisters, different styles), general bad judgment at every level, and the worst apple pie known to humankind. "Please don't ask for the recipe," cousin Karen would boast, "it's a secret." Bleck. The pie usually went untouched except for Walt's pity piece and the huge wedge she would serve her boyfriend (Randy? I can't even remember his name), who would force it down while gazing longingly at the other desserts...and sis and I, I might add.

Many of my cousins have eschewed marriage, so there was never any shortage of "little bastards" (as my grandmother called them) running around the house. And Rosie, who couldn't resist a stray of any kind, inevitably invited some disheveled but grateful urchin from the neighborhood to join us.

Yes, it was as chaotic as it sounds, but Rosie would manage to coordinate the grand feast and get it on the table before her eyes blurred and her words slurred from the effects of her cheap jug wine.

I'm not sure when it all started going downhill, first Rosie started buying pies instead of making them, so my sister and I volunteered to bring desserts. Then Walt's homemade rolls started resembling hockey pucks instead of bread. Grandma began having mini-strokes and got kookier and scarier as each year passed. She was the guardian of the door that separated the smokers from the rest of us and she started to fall down on the job. One year Rosie tried to slip in a bowl of instant mashed potatoes but my sister busted her. We would be in charge of the potatoes from then on. I believe that same year Rosie put way too many giblets in the gravy and we all admitted to her we hated giblets so she lost interest in the gravy as well. Sis eventually took charge of that task too.

Walt died and his creepy daughters left the scene. Grandma passed away and took some of the holiday's personality with her. Rosie's food started tasting more like cigarette smoke and less like food.

Rosie's middle son, cousin Mark, built a house in Kelseyville and Rosie moved in with him, so two years ago we decided to have Thanksgiving in their real house instead of the double-wide. We arrived and everything was going along well, and going, and going, and going with no sign of the food actually reaching the table. The food was more or less prepared but there it sat, the turkey getting drier, crispy onions burning on the casserole, as Rosie sat on the porch smoking and chugging her rotgut. Finally Sis and I took charge, coordinating the dishes and getting everything on the table.

That year we realized that the balance of priorities between getting looped and getting the dinner on the table had shifted for our aunt Rosie. She loved having everybody there but she no longer loved being in charge of the feast.

Last year Sis and I had Thanksgiving at our own place with a houseful of friends and local family and we didn't even see Rosie and the gang.

This year Rosie's oldest son and his wife hosted Thanksgiving. Cousin Steve and Eileen put together a wonderful feast for a huge crowd, just like old times. Rosie was there (with her grumpy boyfriend Bob) and all she had to make was the green bean/crispy onion casserole. It tasted exactly like it was supposed to so I guess she can handle 3-ingredient dishes. Lynnette stopped smoking so there was one less hacker. The mashed potatoes were real, the cranberry sauce homemade, sis made fabulous gravy and as far as I could tell there were no food disasters. (Except that my aunt Merna, almost blind, destroyed the cheese crust on the broccoli casserole and tried to put cranberry sauce on her potatoes before I rescued her.) The pies were delicious and nobody had qualms about sharing their "secret" recipes.

This year all Rosie had to do was show up with her casserole, sit on the porch, smoke and sip wine, ignore grumpy Bob's glares (he thinks she drinks too much), and visit with her family.

Thanksgiving was a lot less dysfunctionally funny, but it was a lot more fun, especially for aunt Rosie.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!


family dysfunction, thanksgiving dinner, tradition