This past weekend, Canadian friends and families celebrated Thanksgiving. Groaning tables, beautiful tableware, expressed gratitude, and memories created were on full display on Instagram.
While I am optimistic about the devolving nature of the patriarchy, in many homes I have contact with, big family dinners still remain the domain of the females in the family. While I suspect the blame for this situation remains on the shoulders of both genders, I will preface that my biggest reason for maintaining this tradition in our household is creating those moments of connection. Creating a special occasion that brings everyone together over a delicious dinner motivates me.
What a fool.
Being the self-aware creature that I am slowly and painfully becoming, I decided this year that was time to hang up the apron. When your plate already feels full enough, adding a big dinner is a giant enterprise. I would have forgone the dinner completely if it had not been for that darn turkey residing in the freezer.
This is called foreshadowing. Darn my aversion to food waste.
I think many of my family members are under the impression that the work for Thanksgiving dinner starts when you heat up the oven. That’s like saying icebergs float on top of the water. By the time it comes to heating up the oven, 85% of the work has already been done. Most of you know this, but for the sake of a longer post, let me explain.
The first and most involved step is planning, and while I will not run you through all the elements, I will include the major points starting with…
What day to have the dinner.
We have a relatively small family in comparison to many. We have six people at our Thanksgiving dinner. That’s six schedules to work around. Only a couple of us have Monday-to-Friday schedules. That leaves me asking people about their schedules and figuring out what day has the least number of people working and when they can get off work.
After we decide on a day, I figure out how one of our non-drivers who is working can get home in time for dinner with a sketchy public transportation schedule. I assign a driving young adult to pick up said non-driver.
Then I have a look at the menu. Fairly standard, turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, two veggies, and dessert. Seems simple.
Except that we have a vegan.
And to those who would say at this point too bad, let the vegan figure it out themselves, I would say this statement only comes from privileged individuals who are assured of having a complete meal before them. This homie don’t run like that. Everyone is equal at this table. Besides, have you ever met a deprived vegan, it’s a particular level of vicious when one cannot drown their sorrows in a healthy round of emotional eating.
So, on top of the above, we need a vegan turkey, vegan stuffing, vegan gravy, can make veggies work both ways, and a vegan dessert.
Then the great vegetable debate ensues…what veggies to have. We have a standard squash casserole so that is a given. To have an even color palette on the plate, I determine the vegetable needs to be green. I canvas my constituents…what green veggie shall grace our table? These are my responses…we don’t need another vegetable we have potatoes….I won’t eat them anyway…please for the love of god no brussel sprouts…I don’t care…I will make it but only if it is a vegetable that everyone will eat (it does not exist).
Side note: If someone actually asks you what vegetable to have at Thanksgiving dinner, give them a practical response. Their decision-fatigue is strong or they wouldn’t be asking you such a ridiculous question.
As a victory, I find a dessert place that does vegan cheesecake. Considering how often our vegan is left with whatever we can find in the grocery store or making something myself, I high-five myself for the win. I tell everyone in and outside of the family where my news is met with a lack of shared excitement including from the vegan.
Then the shopping begins, there is the first shop at Costco with everyone who is not vegan with a clear directive…Costco pumpkin pie. Secured early in the week, I can bask in a small amount of relief. Then I plan a shopping day and quit work early (which I will have to make up later) to go to three stores to pick up the ingredients and the brining kit.
Brining kit?
Yes, we had complaints on the dryness of last year’s turkey so in my efforts to try and moisten things up, I purchased a brining kit.
I also attended two stores to find onion straws and vegan-friendly stuffing.
Tired yet? I am.
Then I start all the precooking. I dedicate an afternoon and an evening to making the squash casserole and the green bean medley. I do not love the look of the green bean medley.
On the day before our dinner, I need to make sure everything is on a thaw and that our vegan cheesecake is picked up. Let’s not get into the fridge shuffle to get everything to fit. Our two fridges are crammed with precarious balancing on multiple shelves.
T Day
I finish my leftover work, I go volunteer, I make lunch, and then I start cooking. There is brining of turkey to be done. The first guest arrives. We get out the afternoon’s entertainment which I organized, a puzzle, and spend a nice hour or two puzzling and listening to Stuart Mclean’s bunny story. Highly recommend.
I alternate between keeping on top of dishes, dinner prep, and trying to appreciate the thought and not strangle anyone as young adults come to me asking if there is anything they can do to help/cook. The offers are so kind which is what stops my hands from leaving my sides, but they just don’t know that this question would have been appreciated like a week ago.
I remind the driver that they will be picking up the non-driver. They look at me like this is news to them. I again show remarkable restraint.
I then get the turkey into the oven, position the temperature probe, and allow the heat to work its magic.
Except I learn pretty quickly that my timing is completely wrong. That’s when everything really starts to fall apart. I realize the earliest we will be eating will be 7/7:30. I had hoped to be eating at 6.
5 pm arrives. Stomp on the floor as this is our communication system with our driver young adult that it is time to pick up the non-driver. They come up thinking it is time for dinner. I remind them that they haven’t picked up the final member of the household. They look at me again like this is news to them and tell me they don’t know where to go.
I have a few suggestions.
But I rally, take a deep breath, and text them the directions.
Meanwhile, people tell me how hungry they are, and I inform them they will be lucky to eat before 7. They have the gall to look put out.
Young adult arrives with another young adult in tow with stories of how they got lost and how hungry they are.
Thirty minutes later, I hear how someone needs to clean up the floor because they threw up!?!
I end up microwaving the turkey and other dishes and getting them on the table so everyone’s pie hole is filled. Even the puker eats which is a tribute to their food-loving gene pool.
My green bean medley is awful. I who have been raised by the strict British standards of eating everything on your plate cannot eat them. Even the onion straws don’t save it. I leave it on the side of my plate. My contribution to the compost bin will be generous.
The turkey is moister than before, but nothing spectacular after all the brining and seasoning. If I am going to take the time to intimately massage oil and season the crevices of a turkey, I am expecting something spectacular.
The squash casserole is a hit as well as the mashed potatoes that my husband artfully made sparing no butter (vegan doesn’t eat mashed potatoes).
Then with everyone groaning, they are rushed into dessert without the traditional hour wait in between because it is past 8 pm, and I just want it all over with. No time for family games. Just eat.
It never fails to shock me how the men in the house can profess to be so full that they cannot eat another bite and still fit a full-sized piece of Costco pumpkin pie in there.
Can you feel the sweet moments of connection?
The young adults all jump in to do the cleanup which is greatly appreciated, and after a brief full stomach moan session, we part ways.
I fall into bed, exhausted, angry at myself, and disappointed.
And you know what the pisser of all this is…it’s 100% my fault.
No one made me do dinner. It was my desire to use up a turkey and end my turkey career on a high note.
I resolve that Christmas is going to be a completely purchased, already-made turkey dinner and next year’s Thanksgiving is going to be Indian, Chinese, or fried chicken.
I am writing this in black and white so that when I try to tell myself next year that cooking will be no big deal…I can reread this. My memory tends to be short in regard to personal pain. After all, I went through labor three times. My perspective of how bad it was last time is skewed.
And for all of you out there who are attending seasonal big dinners in the next few months, here are a few gentle tips:
When you ask what you can contribute and they say a vegetable, do not ask what vegetable. Make a concrete suggestion and let them yea or nay it. Decision fatigue is real.
If you ask to contribute and they say nothing, buy flowers or hard liquor a candle for the chef regardless of whether you live in the same house or not.
Arrange your own transportation or if picking up someone, remember and look up the address yourself.
If you require a special diet, contribute a dish large enough to share or at the very least muster up excitement when they share what they are making that is friendly to your persuasion…except gluten-free…I think masked disgust muted enthusiasm is appropriate in this instance.
Most of all connection is everyone’s responsibility not just one member of the family. If you live together, show up for each other. If the words “then just don’t have a dinner” come out of your mouth, you are part of the problem, not the solution.
Do not tell the chef that potato is a vegetable.
With all that moaning aside, the essence of Thanksgiving is gratitude, and this year, I am truly grateful for all the members of my family who get out of the way when I seem determined to learn the hard way that I do not want to cook big family dinners anymore and allow me the space and time to have a meltdown over my mistakes with the odd hug and telling me that dinner was delicious.
Vodka is made from potatoes. Potatoes are a vegetable. Vodka is a salad.
- Unknown
haha! there will come a day when your dedication to big family dinners pays off...when your kids start cooking and hosting the dinners. My contribution this year was asparagus in garlic butter (big hit) took 5 minutes to prepare..and a banana cream pie that I bought by mistake that was gross but was lots of fun as a family pie fail joke!