I grew up traveling for Thanksgiving every year, piling into the car and always getting stuck with the middle seat. We had portable DVD players that eventually were phased out in favor of listening to music on our phones, both of my sisters at some point using me as a headrest despite the fact (which I reminded them of) that they had the windows to lean on.
Many of the Thanksgivings from early years blend together, with little moments popping out; my grandparents’ dining room, the cousins asking to pass the salt between us. I remember putting on nice clothes and what the table looked like, the high ceilings and the half-wall of upstairs where the cousins would all eventually head when our impatience kicked in.
My grandparents let all of the grandkids take over this small office space of sorts in their house—to us it was The Secret Room, where no adults were permitted save for Grandma and Papa. There were bins upon bins of markers (Grandma always had extra packs of “smelly markers” AKA Mr. Sketch Scented Markers in the closet) and all of our various artwork from over the years, and from all 16 grandkids, covered every wall, until the younger half of us started storing old drawings in a drawer to display our own creations.
Downstairs the dads/uncles would be playing poker, sometime before or after we were called back for dessert.
Locations toggled between my Connecticut Aunt’s house and my grandparents’ for a few years, but either way, we were piled in the car with a reusable grocery bag full of snacks at our feet and the scrambling to find our shoes to go into a rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike.
The location was different but the turkey was still dry, the cranberry sauce untouched but present for the sake of tradition. The dessert table was full and the most anticipated part of the evening.
Performances were put on, one a Red Riding Hood of sorts that left us all in a fit of giggles, especially with the accompaniment of sound effects from my cousin’s keyboard.
The snippets from my aunt’s house are a bit different because the week was stretched out; it just so happened that the swim meet my sisters had every year was in the same town as hers, the weekend before Thanksgiving. This was in the time (late elementary school-early middle school, I would guess) where my consciousness developed a bit more, making the memories stronger and molding what would become the feeling of this holiday. We used to have the whole week off of school, so we would drive up to Connecticut and they would swim and I would hang out with my dad at his brother’s house nearby (other side of the family) and then we’d go by the swim meet and I’d play on the playground and head into the room of violating humidity and chlorine to say hi to my sisters and our friends and then leave to go to the diner, where every single year I ordered the Big Breakfast, which is 3 full plates of food.
Connecticut Thanksgiving was potato, carrot and parsnip peeling and chopping at the kitchen table, making vats of pumpkin bread and corn muffins. It was folding chairs wedged up against the wall. Falling asleep on the couch after a day of prep work and just sinking into the cushions. (Seriously the best couch ever).
Connecticut Thanksgiving was my aunt making us cups of hot chocolate once we woke up. It was maybe getting some homework done leisurely but watching more TV. It was talking about movies and actresses that my aunt and grandma and mom can tolerate. It was going to the movie theater for 3 consecutive years to see The Hunger Games sequels. It was Pizza Wednesday, the thin slices and bacon pizza on Thanksgiving Eve. A weeklong affair, so I now think of Thanksgiving as 2-3 days at the very least.
The day itself was also routine, showing up in neutral colors save for our great aunt who always was the pop of color. Crowded in the family room lingering around the snack trays while awkwardly catching up and glancing at football. Getting everyone together outside for a photo. Cups of soup on trays, pouring parmesan cheese in and burning my tongue. “Dinner” by 2 pm and a blessing that year by year I would look up and glance around during because I didn’t actually know the words to grace.
Things are a little bit frozen here, I think. Coming in the side door and seeing my grandma sitting at the island. Naming the turkeys with her and having her sneak me pieces of skin before the food was served. Because things since then have fallen apart a bit.
There was the year where Grandma had an oxygen mask, the one where we all wore name tags because Papa couldn’t remember. And then there have been the years without them, where we couldn’t be together (COVID) and then when we stopped being together because they weren’t there.
Things have shifted further to include Thanksgiving at home, outside, with friends. To waking up in my own bed, missing the parade because I slept too late, and skipping breakfast in favor of Thanksgiving dinner—not too much of a change given it’s not a rarity that my first meal of the day is around 1 or 2 PM.
And then this year, to be somewhere warm, a home-scouting mission for my parents.
I’m far from accustomed to wearing short sleeves in November (thanks Wisconsin), much less a bathing suit and being able to go for a swim. But those first few days in Hilton Head, it was hot, a nice 70 degrees more or less. We biked to the beach and the pool and it felt like—it was— a vacation. I’d never associated Thanksgiving with vacation, oddly enough, because we weren’t necessarily going to glamorous destinations, per se, but were instead going to a house, full of familiar furniture and people and smells and cookware and picture frames.
I think I like that better.
I’ve never done well with change, and this year I think I realized that it’s because sometime a routine and familiarity manage to capture a feeling. They allow ghosts to partake in prep work because they had occupied the chairs and there are hints of them around the room. And here we were, in a tinier kitchen without an electric mixer, only one turkey and one table and of course I had a good time, I was grateful, but there was an absence because there were no memories here.
The sun made it feel like a different season, tricked me into thinking maybe Thanksgiving hadn’t even come and gone this year. Because over the years, the chill of the wind became a piece of the holiday, as did the multiple couches and post-dinner dispersing. And without these moments, these memories, it just felt like a day.
