THANKSGIVING IN A YEAR WHICH IS NOT NORMAL

 First, a big OOOPS – and an apology.  For the first time since I started this blog in October 2015, I missed posting last week.  I may have otherwise posted a day (maybe 2 days once) late, I have not missed any other full week.  Even worse, I did not realize that I did so.  I was starting to write this post and since it about Thanksgiving last week, I looked to see what I posted about our holiday last week – and there was no post for last week.

I have mentioned before that husband and I used to have both our families for Thanksgiving dinner from 1984 through 2008.  I have probably mentioned that since we are of different religions Thanksgiving was the only family type holiday that both families wanted us to come to them for dinner.  (Meaning his family for Christmas, mine for Chanukah, his family for Easter, mine for Passover – plus mine for other Jewish holidays which are big family meal occasions.)  The first several years we generally ended up with husband's family for Thanksgiving.  

But in 1984 we decided to try something different – both families would come to us for dinner.  My husband thought the idea was crazy.  We lived in a small 3 room apartment and between the 2 families (including grandparents)  and us there were  about a dozen people (his sister and brother in law were on their honeymoon).  I had thought it all out.  His parents had 2 large folding tables – we could set up the 2 tables as one running the length of the living room.   My good china, glasses, silverplateware served 14.  (The china pattern was discontinued after we started buying it and we bought 2 extra settings in case anything broke.)  It could work if we borrowed some extra folding chairs in addition to the tables.

But the menu?  Surveys taken in the U.S. of what people have for Thanksgiving dinner all sounded the same - “turkey and all the fixings” until people were pressed in later surveys about which “fixings” they have.  It was then discovered that while turkey was generally a given (short of vegetarians or such) the side dishes varied greatly by the part of the country people were from, as well as their ethnic backgrounds – some even had chicken instead of turkey.  While my in-laws had been going out for Thanksgiving dinner for a number of years, when they had the dinner at home of course there was a macaroni with tomato sauce course and Italian pastries for dinner.  My family when Thanksgiving was at home would have chicken soup and then turkey, vegetables, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pies... My family though, for some time had been going out to a kosher deli for Thanksgiving dinner as an aunt was kosher.  Since mom would make a turkey for dinner (with lots of leftovers for other meals) a couple of times a year, when confronted with dinner in a kosher deli – my sisters and I went for corned beef sandwiches as we did not get them as often as turkey.  So compromise was needed in the dinner menu.  We settled on a traditional menu – turkey, corn, green beans, stuffing – I think the first year was the year I tried to make my own stuffing which included chestnuts which I had never cooked before – mashed potatoes, and I baked pies for dessert.  Somehow it all worked and worked well, so we continued making the Thanksgiving dinner.  We moved into our house during October – finishing up October 31 and still made Thanksgiving dinner in our newly bought house.  There were adjustments – dining room would not hold the two long tables end to end or next to each other, so we built a setup of plywood which clamped to our old kitchen table (which was in the dining room as it was too large for our small kitchen) to make a large, square table.  (Eventually we bought a dining room table which fit 14 if we squeezed in.)  Nieces and a nephew joined our number along the way.  Once or twice husband's best friend from high school joined us.  Husband's sister's mother-in-law joined us.

The annual dinner came to an end the year we had bed bugs.  Of course that year we could not have anyone as the house had been recently treated for the bugs and was in disarray (real disarray – sofa cushions and such all over the floor clothing, towels and fabric out – all due to the treatment) and we did not have the families in for Thanksgiving and we went to an inexpensive restaurant for our dinner.  Since then we have not felt comfortable having people in the house as we cannot deal with having bedbugs ever again and terrified of getting them.  After a few years of going out for Thanksgiving dinner, we started cooking dinner for ourselves.  

This year was a challenge.  Our dining room table was covered with the excess canned, bottled, jarred, and packaged foods we have due to the pandemic.  Husband suggested we eat at the kitchen table this year.  I pointed out to him (and after the holiday he agreed) that we needed the kitchen table for carving, filling bowls, storing items waiting to be used as we have very little counters pace and only 1/3 of it (about 30 inches long) would be available to use.

So I had to clear off my work table in our studio (dining room is on one of the kitchen – studio on the other side) and move all the food there.  Two evenings work – but everything was going well.  I even managed to put out my Thanksgiving decorations (not all of them are bears) including paper ones my niece made for me decades ago (she is 30 now).  

By now the setup is repetitive – I know which bowls and platters I will use for serving which food.  I know I need to add one board to our dining room so it is large enough to hold the bowls and platters.  I baked the pies the night before.  I got up early (well, for us) on Thanksgiving and took the turkey out of the refrigerator and turned on the oven to preheat.  Back to sleep for an hour and then down again to put the turkey in the oven and then back to bed again.  Everything was going according to plan – as it always does.  Each item being cooked at the time it needed to be – or so I thought.  

The turkey had come out and cooled off.  We were almost ready to eat.  Husband asked me where the mashed potatoes were – uh oh!  Normally I make mashed potatoes from scratch and use boxed stuffing mix.  This year as we are avoiding buying fresh produce due to the corona virus and not wanting to get items which were unwrapped when purchased and had been touched by others we had decided to go with instant mashed potatoes.  Well, at least they and the boxed stuffing were quick to make when we realized I had not made them – and while we were waiting for the water for each to boil – husband noticed that we had not heated up the (canned) gravy.  Yes, there is a reason I was so disorganized this year – actually 2 reasons – I had not bothered to periodically check my list of what I was making.  (I keep the list each year for each holiday dinner I make in a spiral notebook – I filled it front to back and am now using it back to front – the list was there, I just did not look.) The other reason – while this year husband is bored from staying in so that we don't get Covid-19 and decided to help. In telling him what I needed him to do, I lost track of what I was doing.  

Of course it was a great meal anyway.  So far we have leftovers for dinner 3 times and he had a turkey sandwich once.  2 people, one turkey is a lot of leftovers including turkey broth made with the carcass late Thanksgiving dinner.  

Every item used was washed that night & air dried in 3 groupings, some help with drying on the first 2 groupings.  The dining room was back to its prior state by the next day.  The good china, etc, was put away by then also.  

I have spent the week since clearing up what was around in the dining room before we started – reenacting items not stored in their box benches, stuff from my family house sitting on extra chairs as we did not know where to put it.  Small amount of stuff to go back out to our RV as we brought them to use them in the house in the past year.  Excess pans and racks which had been removed from the oven over the past year.  Dented food cans that husband still not will get rid of and we want to keep away from the ones in the studio that are okay to use are in a line under one of the box benches in the dining room.  3 large boxes of food still in dining room – I will try to move them to the studio, but need to move things from the living room there first or we will not be able to put the tree and other decorations in the living room.  If worse comes to worse, the food boxes can stay in the dining room (perhaps a table cloth over them?)  Yes, the dining room is back in better organization than it was before the holiday so that I can decorate it for Christmas.  

Next I start on the living room.  Husband has until the middle of December to use it as his “loom room” for his weaving (our agreement is he gets it from mid January to mid December as his loom room and I get the other month for Christmas decorating), but I can get started moving out his inventory and the large DVD chest (latter stores in the dining room for the holiday against the side wall and he made it on wheels so it is relatively easy to move) in the interim.  Since last year we did not get around to decorating in the house – I know if we don't this year, we may never do so again.  

Outdoor lights went up the day after Thanksgiving.  We found ourselves short 4 strands of lights  - they had expired last year or in the interim – one set only half the bulbs lit.  We did not want to the store (as we go out rarely these months for health safety) so decided to work with what we had.  Our the trees on each end each have only 2 strands not 3, the bush next to one tree has only the lights from that tree traveling over its top on its way to the electric outlet.  On the other end – we normally wrap red lights (with white wires) around the white post of our mail box – this year instead those lights are on the bush in front of the mail box.  On the other side of the front steps (back towards that first tree) are the remaining set of lights.  Not bad considering.  Our door wreath lights with batteries and is up on its magnetic hook (left from last year) and is lit up.  The battery candle lights are in the front windows on their timers.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

This year we need the holidays – whichever holiday or holidays one celebrates this time of year – more than ever to try to spark some joy (and a bit of almost normalcy) in our lives.  If one can not put up/set up everything one normally does, we must do our best with what we can setup.  It is a year like no other in the memory of most of us.  We must try to do what we can to make our holidays as normal as we can while staying distant and safe so we will be here for next year's holidays and celebrations.  

NOTE -

When I went to publish this post – I found  I had written a post last week – but since it duplicates part of this weeks post – I have deleted it.