Ghost of Thanksgivings Past

The holidays are almost upon us. Heck, it wasn't even Halloween yet and there were Christmas items showing up on the shelves in stores. Earlier and earlier every year this new holiday, Hallowthanksmas arrives. How differently do you celebrate the holidays now than you did when you were growing up? Are there traditions from childhood that you cling to and continue and pass on to your own kids?

Marty and I don't really have a whole lot of tradition here. Some years we've celebrated holidays at home alone, some years we've had people over, some years we haven't been at home at all but have gone to the homes of friends or family. This year, all I want to do is stay home together, eat a load of good food and watch football. I don't even want to get out of my jammies. The whole day. That's all I want. And that's what we're going to do. Our old turkey fryer bit the dust year before last and I just ran out and purchased another for $37 (we paid $75 for the first one back in 2009 up in CT).

A good friend of ours (and coworker) called me the other day and said that he wanted to put together a couple of Thanksgiving boxes, including a turkey, trimmings and dessert, to give out to some folks who might be in need. He was asking me for assistance on selecting the recipients and getting the boxes distributed. I was really excited about it for a couple of reasons - I love working at the food pantry at work and helping people out. And more than that this friend is someone who has been down on his luck, has had lots of challenges recently; health concerns, domestic concerns, financial issues... and now when he is just barely on his own feet he wants to help others. The whole thing just warms my heart.  Then our office got involved and thought it was a great idea and they're contributing boxes of food for folks who live in our communities as well. Those are all going to be distributed on Monday if all goes according to plan.

So, all of this got me to thinking about the first Thanksgiving that Marty and I celebrated together, back in 2009. We were living up in East Haven, CT and he'd just moved in with me about two months earlier. We were having a rough time financially and were both making some pretty huge life adjustments. We had already coauthored a book called Convoking Hell, which was a dual autobiography drawing our lives in parallel stories up to the beginning of our cohabitation. Then we started writing Conjuring Love, which was the sequel, picking up from that point and moving forward. The following is a brief excerpt from that novel, an entry just shortly prior to Thanksgiving that year....

I don’t know why, in this rotten economy people in retail and in advertising have to start cramming the holidays down our throats so early in the year. I swear, every year it starts earlier and earlier. In days gone by the commercials for Christmas stuff didn’t start until the day after Thanksgiving. Now, ya go into a store around Halloween and see Christmas decorations out already. It just kills me. Christmas is about the birth of Santa, now? These days Thanksgiving has hardly arrived before I want to take a flamethrower to Frosty the Snowman, and if I hear any more songs about having a Holly Jolly friggin’ Christmas I might just go postal.

Thanksgiving is comin’ up quick now. We bought a turkey fryer a while back at Home Depot (burn in hell) and now I don’t know if we’ve even got enough cash for a turkey to fry in it. Wish we had a cat.

When I was a kid we had big Thanksgiving dinners; turkey and all the trimmings and lots of pies. There was always some kind of monster movie marathon on Channel 11 out of New York; King Kong, Godzilla, all the classics. The food would hit the table and we’d all sit around and eat and not talk. Talking was not something that was allowed at the dinner table. Yeah, that makes no sense to me now, either, but that’s what it was. Then after dessert everyone would return to their own corners of the house. I’d go to my room, call some friends and watch the monster movies. Big deal.

When I lived alone I’d get some kind of turkey-ish something or other; a frozen turkey TV dinner or something and hang by myself, and watch the monster movie marathons. Big deal.

For the last twenty years I had a standing invitation to go to my housemate’s brother’s house to have dinner with their family on all the standard holidays. Mostly I watched the interactions, had some food and then fell asleep in the car on the way home. There was nothing wrong with spending the holidays that way, but they weren’t MY holidays then, either. I was always a welcome tag-along, but I was also always a guest.
This year… maybe things will be different. I know that I’d like them to be different. I asked a while back about what everyone’s plans were for the holidays. I wasn’t sure if Marty would want to do something with his family if they were up north, or if Rachel would be going to Rhode Island to see her family… for all I knew I’d be sitting here at Staven Rescue with a Swanson’s Turkey Dinner again, trying to find some kind of monster movie marathon to watch. But… it seems that everyone will be here and we’ll be doing something together, even if we have to cook a TV dinner in the friggin’ fryer.


We’ll see…



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