Thanksgiving 1981
My family is spending Thanksgiving at my grandparents’ home. I’m 11 years old. After dinner, I try to sit at the adult table and engage in conversation.
I’m quickly shooed away.
Instead, I grab paper and begin writing political cartoons about the challenges of Reaganonmics, the need to save the whales, and the dangers of inflation while listening to the adults talk. My aunt Diane sees my cartoons and is impressed.
They aren’t great, but for a ten-year-old kid, they are impressive. Before leaving, she scoops them up for safekeeping.
Twenty-five years later, she sends them to me.
Thanksgiving 1989
I’m 18 years old and living with my friends in Attleboro, Massachusetts, in a home we affectionately call The Heavy Metal Playhouse. I’m managing a McDonald’s restaurant in Milford, and the company has given me a free turkey for Thanksgiving. Unable to go home for Thanksgiving because of my relationship with my stepfather, I cook my first turkey for a handful of friends and employees with no other place to go.
I overcook the turkey. The gravy is so bad that it doesn’t register as gravy. The boxed stuffing is fantastic. So, too, is the instant potatoes, canned corn, and canned cranberry sauce.
We also drink a lot of cheap alcohol.
Thanksgiving 1991
My girlfriend’s father serves me stew consisting of my pet rabbit. I had given him the rabbit after discovering that indoor rabbits don’t make great pets. He has a hutch full of rabbits in the backyard, so I assume he loves rabbits.
Instead, he was raising and selling them to Portuguese restaurants.
“How do you like the stew?” he asks as I take my first bite.
“I like it,” I say.
“You should,” he laughs. “It’s your rabbit.”
I rise from my seat, say a few regrettable words, and leave.
Thanksgiving 1992
I’ve just been rescued from homelessness, but the family who did the rescuing is celebrating Thanksgiving with family members in a neighboring town, leaving me alone for the day. My family and friends are unaware of my situation, so none have invited me to celebrate with them.
I eat hot dogs and candy bars from 7-11 before heading to the Cineplex in Brockton, Massachusetts, to watch Unforgiven in an empty movie theater.
I sit in the third row, feeling as alone as I have ever felt.
Thanksgiving 2002
I’m sitting at a large table in my girlfriend’s parents’ home as her father serves dinner. He’s wearing a chef’s hat and explaining each dish before handing it to his wife to pass around the table.
When the yams reach the woman beside me, she whispers, “I hate yams.”
“Me, too,” I say. “Why are you putting them on your plate.”
“My mother taught me it’s rude to pass on something someone has cooked for you,” she says.
I laugh. “Your mom was wrong,” I say. “It would be rude to force you to eat something you don’t like. Besides, you’re a grown-ass woman. Eat or don’t eat whatever you want.”
She pauses for a moment before saying, “You’re right! Why should I eat something I don’t like?”
A woman across the table overhears this conversation and joyfully says, “I agree!” and passes the dish in her hand to the next person without spooning any of the food into her plate. A discussion erupts on how crazy it is to eat something you don’t like just to avoid being rude.
My girlfriend’s father hears all of this and is not pleased. Not pleased one bit.
Thanksgiving 2004
Elysha and I drive to Fort Lee, New Jersey, for Thanksgiving with her family. We spend nearly five hours in traffic, including over half an hour on the George Washington Bridge. As I enter the home, I’m asked about the length of the drive.
“Almost five hours,” I say.
“That’s not so bad,” the host says.
I want to kill him.
I will soon discover that the only television in the home is located in a back room and is tuned to the Oprah Winfrey Show.
Football is not a part of this Thanksgiving Day tradition. It’s the first Thanksgiving I spend without any football whatsoever.
We never go back to New Jersey again for Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving 2016
Elysha’s uncle is assigned to bring mashed potatoes to our feast. He arrives at our home with potatoes in a very partial state of completion. Elysha is cooking and has no space or time for her uncle’s potatoes.
She’s displeased.
He asks Elysha for an electric mixer. Then he breaks it.
Meanwhile, I make instant potatoes in the microwave. It takes less than ten minutes. We don’t tell our guests which potatoes are real and which are instant, then survey them, asking which they prefer.
It’s the Great Potato Cook-Off.
Elysha’s uncle’s potatoes are excellent.
My instant potatoes win in a landslide.
Thanksgiving 2023
Hopefully, a festive occasion filled with excellent food, even better company, and lots of memorable stories.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
