Thanksgiving Is My Christmas
Andy Williams had it all wrong. Thanksgiving is the most wonderful time of the year.
As a poor kid growing up in rural Southeast Texas, Christmas was hard. While my parents fought over the "right" way to string lights on an anemic artificial tree, our seven television stations broadcast non-stop messages of unaffordable presents and unattainable family happiness. Toys R Us burst with more games, more toys, oh boy. Homes dripped with decorations and lights. Everyone was happy and nothing ever went wrong (except for that time Kevin got left home alone). Even the long-distance phone commercials were sappy and soaked with the kind of togetherness my parents -- mostly estranged from their own families in the Midwest -- didn't long for. I couldn't relate to most of what surrounded me.
Walking the tightrope that is the poverty line, my family wavered on and off of traditional welfare. The government provided cash benefits back then for necessities like shoes and toiletries, but it couldn't stretch far enough to accommodate a bountiful Christmas. A real tree, wrapping paper, bows, tape, gas money to drive 45 minutes to the nearest mall, not to mention actual presents -- all of that cost more dollars and cents than we were capable of scraping together on our own.
Well-meaning neighbors and generous churches sometimes gave gifts to families like mine. They included things like a Dollar Store plastic horse-racing set and a promotional Velveeta 35mm camera...which was cool for a 10-year-old, if you could afford to buy film and have pictures printed. Usually, we could not. Yet I still remember my mother thanking Mr. Dewey profusely for this gift that we couldn't use, because he meant well.
But Thanksgiving was different. It gloriously lacked the pressures and inevitable let-downs of Christmas. There were very few messages telling families that they needed to have the biggest turkey on the block, and back at school nobody asked if the Pillsbury Dough Boy had brought you what you wanted. Food stamps could buy most of what we needed for our holiday meal, and the rest was found on the shelves at the local community pantry.
On Thanksgiving, you could almost forget the ways your family was different and less than. As long as you had a working oven and a cold refrigerator, the rest was easy as pumpkin pie.
I don't really member the meals. I couldn't tell you what the table looked like, none of our family ever came to visit, and I don't care who won the game. What I hold on to are the scents and tastes of that day that remained constant year after year when nothing else did -- walking from the cold outside air into a house full of the savory smells of turkey and dressing. The cranberry sauce that puckered my mouth and the candied yams that soothed it. Everybody's bellies being full after Thanksgiving dinner, even if we didn't touch the mincemeat pie my mother loved. (I'm still not sure what mincemeat is.) We ate fudge in our school lunches for days afterward.
My mother has been gone for more than 10 years, and she hadn't prepared a Thanksgiving meal for more than a decade before her death. But the taste of her warm pumpkin bread slathered in cream cheese can almost conjure her into my kitchen, and with it a few happy memories of my childhood.
Maybe Christmas gets all the glory, but Thanksgiving is all I need.
 |
| Unless you're a turkey. |
As a poor kid growing up in rural Southeast Texas, Christmas was hard. While my parents fought over the "right" way to string lights on an anemic artificial tree, our seven television stations broadcast non-stop messages of unaffordable presents and unattainable family happiness. Toys R Us burst with more games, more toys, oh boy. Homes dripped with decorations and lights. Everyone was happy and nothing ever went wrong (except for that time Kevin got left home alone). Even the long-distance phone commercials were sappy and soaked with the kind of togetherness my parents -- mostly estranged from their own families in the Midwest -- didn't long for. I couldn't relate to most of what surrounded me.
Walking the tightrope that is the poverty line, my family wavered on and off of traditional welfare. The government provided cash benefits back then for necessities like shoes and toiletries, but it couldn't stretch far enough to accommodate a bountiful Christmas. A real tree, wrapping paper, bows, tape, gas money to drive 45 minutes to the nearest mall, not to mention actual presents -- all of that cost more dollars and cents than we were capable of scraping together on our own.
Well-meaning neighbors and generous churches sometimes gave gifts to families like mine. They included things like a Dollar Store plastic horse-racing set and a promotional Velveeta 35mm camera...which was cool for a 10-year-old, if you could afford to buy film and have pictures printed. Usually, we could not. Yet I still remember my mother thanking Mr. Dewey profusely for this gift that we couldn't use, because he meant well.
 |
| Merry Cheese-mas, kid. |
But Thanksgiving was different. It gloriously lacked the pressures and inevitable let-downs of Christmas. There were very few messages telling families that they needed to have the biggest turkey on the block, and back at school nobody asked if the Pillsbury Dough Boy had brought you what you wanted. Food stamps could buy most of what we needed for our holiday meal, and the rest was found on the shelves at the local community pantry.
On Thanksgiving, you could almost forget the ways your family was different and less than. As long as you had a working oven and a cold refrigerator, the rest was easy as pumpkin pie.
I don't really member the meals. I couldn't tell you what the table looked like, none of our family ever came to visit, and I don't care who won the game. What I hold on to are the scents and tastes of that day that remained constant year after year when nothing else did -- walking from the cold outside air into a house full of the savory smells of turkey and dressing. The cranberry sauce that puckered my mouth and the candied yams that soothed it. Everybody's bellies being full after Thanksgiving dinner, even if we didn't touch the mincemeat pie my mother loved. (I'm still not sure what mincemeat is.) We ate fudge in our school lunches for days afterward.
 |
| My mom's fudge recipe |
My mother has been gone for more than 10 years, and she hadn't prepared a Thanksgiving meal for more than a decade before her death. But the taste of her warm pumpkin bread slathered in cream cheese can almost conjure her into my kitchen, and with it a few happy memories of my childhood.
Maybe Christmas gets all the glory, but Thanksgiving is all I need.
Comments
Post a Comment