DelBloggolo: A DAY OF THANKS

Thursday, November 27, 2014

A DAY OF THANKS

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Or… what the Hell am I doing in this store?

Q: Why did the turkey cross the road?
A: It was the chicken's day off.

Our national holiday is an interesting one in that it is the harbinger of Christmas and New Year and Hanukah, we call it Thanksgiving and it did have something to do with Pilgrims, Native Americans (Indians) and Chinese take-out once. Now of course we commercialize the heck out of it, just like all our traditional holidays!

Like Christmas, if you live alone in this world you might go to the movies on the holiday of Thanks, and if not, you will stuff yourself, be too tired to think about going to work the next day and you will be all footballed and chatted out until Christmas Day, New Years Day with the bowl games.

As a child I remember the holiday for one thing and one thing only: turkey. It went into Mom’s special turkey pot, which she covered in butter and other spices and occasionally took the bird out to baste it in its own juices. We only ate turkey once a year and when we did we ate a ton of other stuff along with it.

One year in Brooklyn, nestled in our dining room, amid the fake fireplace and my favorite guests, my Mom’s baby sister Aunt Marie and her husband, my idol Uncle Frank, we all sat around the table and it was always sunny. The window would cast a beautiful golden glow across the room from the open ally way next to us on our third floor walk up. We wore a tie on that day, it was special.

There was everything on that table that as a little boy you would want. Mom started off with the usual Sunday dinner meal which was macaroni, the different meats and then the turkey and the cranberry sauce, which I hated but ate anyway because the Pilgrims must have had a hard time making it for us. But the thing I loved and still do was the Italian sausage stuffing, something Grandma Frances taught Mom and she carried it on throughout her life, and we make now ourselves.

The leftovers the next day, Friday was the best when we got older, and had Friday off. Mom would take out the turkey or what was left of it and cut it into pieces for turkey sandwiches, along with a nice pile of stuffing and a glass of red wine, and life was good, very good! It would turn into another holiday, as we sat with the left over company and chatted, finishing off the day with chestnuts, wall nuts and pumpkin pie. In fact it was the day I asked TLW (The Little Woman) to marry me in 1970.

This year will be different… Mom has passed and so has the tradition: as I knew it. I will eat at home today, enjoy my day with a parade, football and food, we will talk about my little munchkin in California and dream for Christmas when she will arrive with her Daddy and beautiful Mommy, and life will be good again.

So everybody,