Observing Thanksgiving In The Company Of One

There was no turkey, no family hovering around the dinner table, no last minute prep.  On Thanksgiving, there was just me.  Not everyone has family.  Some people have family far away.  Others have circumstances that prevent them from getting out-of-town: the time, the expense, the hassle.  And then there are other people who choose to spend Thanksgiving by themselves.

I've done Thanksgiving by myself before.  There should be no shame in this;  it's not the end of the world.  In fact, spending the holiday alone allowed me to put my mind at rest, to appreciate (and be thankful for) the little things without the hustle and bustle of holiday stresses.  It allowed me to listen to my thoughts.  To spend some time getting to know myself better because it's rare that we take the time to know ourselves.  We have so little time...

I reached out to my family far away, to friends, the people I care about and those I'm thankful for having in my life.  Those are the important things.  That's what the day is for: to remember family, the significant people who have touched you, the ones you can't imagine not knowing... the people of your life.  Because this is your life and the majority of people in this world you will never have an opportunity to meet, much less know.

On Thanksgiving, it's not the meal that matters.  Or the turkey or whether or not the pumpkin pie was homemade or store-bought.  It's the people of your life, even if they're not seated around the dinner table with you.  Even if miles separate you from looking into their eyes on Thanksgiving Day or if they no longer exist in this world.  Even if those people are friends you've lost touch with or those who are no longer a part of your life even though maybe you'd like them to be.

It's the people who have made you smile and laugh, the ones who drive you insane (but you love them anyway), the people who have touched you in some way, those who have forever changed you, the ones you love, those you've loved and those who have allowed you to believe in love again, if you've ever lost faith.  And nearly all of us have at some point.  Be thankful for those people and for yourself for being here, for making it through another day, for contributing to the world.  For being significant in other peoples' lives in ways you may never know.

Spending Thanksgiving by yourself doesn't make you an orphan or a leftover.  In many ways, it allows you to reflect on the holiday in ways that might escape you if you were stressed by fixing the turkey or trying to get the table set just right.  Or if you were traversing state lines in a mad rush to make it home in time.

There was no turkey, no family hovering around the dinner table, no last minute prep.  On Thanksgiving, there was just me, a big bowl of buttered popcorn and my chosen movie friend of the evening: Planes, Trains and Automobiles.  Because movies can be our friends, too.  And I'm thankful for movies as well as many other things in my life.

[Note: Today I'm also thankful for other peoples' Thanksgiving leftovers (that I'm getting to enjoy for the first time today.)  One person's turkey leftovers are another person's turkey "first-overs."
Happy Thanksgiving Saturday!]

Copyright © 2014 by Kendra Liedle/@cococaffeine

Turkey For A Lab

Thanksgiving is just a few days away and I'm thankful already.  I'm thankful that I won't be standing in security at LAX airport or shivering in temperatures not meant for human life as I wait for my mother to pick me up in a place best known for snow days this time of year.  I'm thankful that I won't turn into a snowcone. Instead,  I'm nice and toasty here just a few miles from the fire place (read: wildfires) where the scent of burning leaves has finally dissipated.

I'm thankful that never again will I have to wear a pastel, rainbow-striped, full-body snowsuit or witness my grandmother "oohing and aahing" over my mother's homemade stuffing sludge, the likes of which no one, and I truly mean, no one but my grandmother (i.e. her mother) liked.  Several vintage bags of stuffing still sit in my mother's basement freezer with the dates of much too long ago... as the ice crystals can attest.  If stuffing sludge ag

ed like wine, we'd be selling it off the back porch by now.  

We were always a small family, but my mother ignored that little detail.  She always prepared enough for an army-- something that's still just as true as ever.  There was the Thanksgiving when potato peelings forced the garbage disposal to EXPLODE.  Gushing water...potato peelings... big blobs of bleached imprints on the floor-- one for every waterlogged potato peeling that landed on our linoleum.  Then, there was the Thanksgiving in which our 28 pound turkey refused to defrost even after two days in the bathtub.  

However, my favorite, favorite Thanksgiving involved not the meal or the desserts or quirky family episodes.  It involved leftovers, or shall I say, the one year that we didn't have any.  

See, if you

 live in the midwestern United States and your mother overcooks Thanksgiving (like mine always does, ) there's never enough room in the fridge or freezer for the leftovers that are sure to come.  But you nearly always have subzero midwest temperatures working in your favor.  Slide open that back porch door and voila!  It's like having a G I G A N T I C, industrial-sized freezer the size of your deck... literally! 

That year, as in every year prior, we marched outside to the back patio with platters and tupperware in hand.  Sweet potatoes... mashed potatoes... dark turkey... white turkey... brown-and-serve rolls, mounds and mounds of stuffing sludge, and slices of chocolate chip pecan pie (since pecan pie is just not rich enough on its own.)  

We built an altar of abandoned food right there on our porch, atop a dusting of freshly fallen snow.  Then, we scurried into the warmth of the living room and settled into couches where we could rest from the gluttony of Thanksgiving recreation and contemplate over a cup of hot cocoa.  

It was my brot

her who first saw the midnight flash of blackness.  No one listened to him; he was just a kid after all.  Then, I saw something-- a whoosh of black fur.  We heard a rattle and a crash.  Then a turkey carcass rolled across our front yard like a tumbleweed. At that point, everyone jumped to their feet and rushed to the back patio.  My mother witnessed the black shadow helping itself to our offering.  Not a split second later, her voice bellowed into the peaceful Thanksgiving night:

BO! GET OUTTA HERE!!! SCRAM!!! 

It was too late.  Bo, our neighbor's black labrador, had helped herself.  Freezer bags were mangled.  Mashed potatoes were smooshed into the snow. Turkey bones littered the yard.  "All our leftovers gone," my mother lamented.  We stood there, our heads held low-- even though the kid in me was secretly saying a prayer of thanks: no leftovers, f

or once!!! Hurray!

In the midst of destruction, as we stood in the darkness of that Thanksgiving night, my mother took a moment, then raised her head up high.  It was then that she reclaimed a bit of her Thanksgiving pride as she exclaimed victoriously-- 

"Well, look here.  The stuffing was left untouched!!!" 

Inside, she found a place in the freezer for the stuffing sludge-- where it still remains.

I don't get to visit my family or participate in any of the Thanksgiving Day family food rituals of years past, but I'm thankful for the mishaps and mistakes just as much as the triumphs.  And although I hate to admit it in print, I'm even thankful for that damn stuffing because it always triggers memories and has become, in a sense, family folklore.

Copyright 2008 Kliedle