Still Thinking About Thanksgiving

Today is December 1, but I am still thinking about Thanksgiving. We had 52 people at our Thanksgiving in Philadelphia last week, enough to cause me to consider the holiday more deeply. So, I share what Thanksgiving means in my family, not the highly problematic mythology that underlies it.

Thanksgiving has been celebrated by my father’s side of the family at least since the 1930s. My grandmother, who emigrated from Ukraine to Philadelphia after family members were murdered in the 1905 Odessa pogrom, adored Thanksgiving. She considered it the quintessential American holiday, and considered herself an American through and through. (I am sure her feelings were similar to countless immigrants who have come to America.)

At some point in the mid 1950’s, my parents took over the holiday. I have wonderful memories of helping my mother make stuffing from scratch, browning onions and celery, breaking white bread into a taEvery year when we were too full to move after dinner, Uncle Al, my dad’s adored older brother, got up from the table, rolled up his sleeves, and put on an apron to wash dishes, an activity he called “pearl diving.”

I am one of 12 cousins on my dad’s side, many of whom came yearly to Thanksgiving, or as often as they could. Friends, strangers, roomates from college, California cousins from the other side of the family, inlaws, or visitors from other countries, were welcome. My mother’s mother came every year from Rochester, New York, until she was 102. (She lived to be 109.)ll pot with whipped eggs, salt, and broth; and stuffing the turkey—never less than 23 pounds. (We started paying attention to the turkey’s weight when our babies came to their first Thanksgivings weighing less.)

Mom made “sweet potato graveyard,” a cloyingly sweet combination of mashed sweet potatoes, crushed pineapples, and marshmallows baked on top. She baked unparalleled homemade French bread, which my father augmented with an array of creamy and gooey and smelly cheeses from around the world. Auntie Lee brought a rainbow of jello molds, and Auntie Char brought a huge appetizer spread. A favorite was her tuna mousse, made in a salmon mold, colored pink to fool the eye and the palette.Every year when we were too full to move after dinner, Uncle Al, my dad’s adored older brother, got up from the table, rolled up his sleeves, and put on an apron to wash dishes, an activity he called “pearl diving.”

I am one of 12 cousins on my dad’s side, many of whom came yearly to Thanksgiving, or as often as they could. Friends, strangers, roomates from college, California cousins from the other side of the family, inlaws, or visitors from other countries, were welcome. My mother’s mother came every year from Rochester, New York, until she was 102. (She lived to be 109.)

Mom died suddenly in 1999 and my sisters and I took over the holiday. It was painful, but important, we felt. I will never adjust to the hole Mom left at the head of the table, the sound of her stockings and the click of her flats as she swished around making preparations, the smell of her giblet soup from which she made her gravy (Aunt Belle’s recipe), or her face covered in turkey grease, when, after she had finally sat down, she worked on the bones (we are a family who loves turkey bones).

Or my father’s stentorian voice over the turkey he carved. Having sharpened his knife with a knife steel, he admonished anyone who came near that he was working with a dangerous implement and we were not to taste any drippings (admonishments that were never heeded.)

We created Thanksgiving until my Dad died in 2018 and the house was sold. We had graduated to two turkeys as our extended family grew and mutiplied. Auntie Lee brought jello molds until the year before she died, and Auntie Char gradually ceded her appetizers to her childen and nieces. It took a lot more of us to make the meal than my mother, or my father’s mother, who seemed to work largely alone when they presided. (In our defense, we were pushing 40 people by then.)

When pandemic restrictions lifted (we had a huge family zoom for Thanksgiving 2020), my younger sister had the brilliant idea of renting an Airbnb nearby for the event. To some of us, at least, it felt unthinkable to let the holiday lapse. Everyone could bring a dish and we could continue the tradition.

Here we are, 90 plus years later, gathering with beloved elders, three generations of cousins, loads of in laws and mishpocha (cousins of cousins), and friends, and the marvelous cluster of babies and children under age 10 who have magically joined the family. The oldest of their generation is in college, and it is a joy to see them.

This year was deeply moving, as it always is, our elders’ laughter and wisdom reaching from beyond the grave, the relentlessness of time, the memories that overwhelm. I felt as I always do, that I could be crushed beneath those memories, but decided instead that they are meant to buoy us and bind us to one another, no matter how much we miss those who are gone.

This is what Thanksgiving means to me. All of the above. Family at its best, full of love, and generosity, and integrity, and unflinching moral compasses, and integrity up the wazoo, and more curiosity than you can imagine. And mouth watering food. It is not about religion or ethnicity or anything else. It is about family. It is about love. I am so grateful.