Ahhh Yes--Thanksgiving Memories

 

 

 

Every family has some Thanksgiving horror in its history.

Whether it be ruining the turkey, dropping the mashed potatoes on the way to the table, or simply forgetting to buy that tasty can of cranberry jelly, we have ALL had some sort of holiday disaster.

My family has had one … a few…OK,  several .

The first turkey I ever remember being cooked for Thanksgiving was when I was five or six years old. As many of you wonderful cooks out there know, a turkey has to be cooked for quite a while to go from a naked jay bird to a brown mouth-watering center piece.  

Well, it just so happened that someone, somewhere, somehow, had told my Momma that the bird would cook and brown to perfection if she rubbed it down with peanut oil , placed it in a brown paper sack, and the slid it into the hot oven.   

Now, Momma wanted to present her household with a perfect bird, so she gave old Tom Turkey a peanut oil bath, slapped him in the bag, and put him in oven.

 Soon, the trouble began.

While every other home in town was filled with the sweet aroma of a bird in the oven, our house was filled with something else. SMOKE! 

A London fog had rolled into the living room, kitchen, and dining room. Even though it was November, the windows were all up, and everybody was fanning. My brother and I finally ran into our bedroom and shoved towels under the door. We learned that trick from watching the “Towering Inferno” on TV.

Needless to say, at our table that year, we all had a smokers hack and blood shot eyes.

But, the bird was really good.

There was another time when Daddy declared that we would eat our Thanksgiving Dinner out. We were all excited about that as we did not eat out at ALL. He had a big plan to make it easier on Momma and give us all a big thrill. We could barely wait until Thanksgiving rolled around. 

When the usual hour of Thanksgiving dinner rolled around, Daddy cut loose with his master plan. He was going to go get Kentucky Fried Chicken.  We all looked at each other for a moment, then thought, “Oh well.”  So, we picked up the phone and called. It rang, and rang, and rang, (you get the picture).

They were CLOSED ON THANKSGIVING (Duh).

SO we boycotted that year. No turkeys or chickens were harmed in the making of that fiasco.

I can skip all the other minor malfunctions down through the years and go straight to the big guns. We call this story, “Ash Thursday”.

Yep—to make a long story short, due to circumstances beyond our control, the turkey went to that great ash pile in the sky, LITERALLY. It was burnt to a crispy mess of black charcoal so bad that the dog couldn’t even crunch it up.

But along with the bad turkey days, we have had plenty of the good. There have been Thanksgiving dinners where everything was perfect and no mishaps were recorded in the family history. 

But we remember each one of those Thanksgivings, good and bad, all the same.

You see, it really doesn’t matter to my family.

Thanksgiving is about being thankful for the blessing you have been gifted by the Almighty all through the year.

 Our brood is blessed a dozen times over every year.  As long as we are all happy, healthy, and can be together, we could pass around a can of potted meat and a pack of crackers and all would still be right in the world.

So remember, even if your bird takes flight, or the sweet potatoes are gloopy, or the electric knife gets stuck in “kill” mode, take it all in stride and be grateful. You have been blessed by the Almighty, and Thanksgiving only comes once a year.

But, and I hate to bring this up, Christmas is only 26 days way.