Bow Tie o’ Thanksgiving Eve is dotted with turkey drumsticks. If you look closely, you can find a total of five turkey legs on the bow tie which have had a bigly bite taken out of ’em.
For a number of years, Mom would cook a separate Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner exclusively for me, Suzanne, Rowan, and my and Suzanne’s pretend hubby, Gary. She planned it for a time during the holiday season when all our schedules allowed us to get together at her home. While gathered at the table for this event one year, I commented to Gary, “Well, it looks like all the black sheep of the family are assembled once again.” Of course, according to Mom, there are no black sheep in our family: she says we all fit in, but in our own singular ways.
Gary always brought the stuffing my Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless made for the occasion. He also brought his own hot peppers and Tabasco sauce, because Gary eats hot peppers and hot sauce with every meal. Gary says his hot pepper peculiarity is because he grew up eating authentic Mexican food in Arizona, but I think it’s just because he’s Gary and likes the pepper heat. Oh, and Gary always brought a can of cranberries for us. (For some reason, cranberries were never a key part of the Wright family Thanksgiving feasts of my youth. I find that a little weird.)
For the festive dinner, we sat at Mom’s kitchen table, pestering her to sit down and eat with us—to quit crisscrossing the kitchen to check on food and bring us more and more of it to the table. Usually, by the time we had finally persuaded Mom to leave the cooking alone and sit down at the table to eat with us, our plates were on the verge of being empty—just as she wished them to be, so she could then watch us pile seconds onto our plates. Mom was the star of the show and chattered with us through the entire celebration. She regaled us with her stories and sarcastic irreverence. When we were finished eating, the biggest battle of the afternoon began immediately: trying to wash the dirty dishes for Mom. You see, Mom never had a dishwasher. She never wanted one. And she never wanted anyone else washing HER dishes at HER sink. I don’t know why any of us ever engaged in this part of our private Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner at Mom’s. I guess it became just another ritual in our holiday dinner tradition. Suffice it to say, Mom always won the annual who’s-gonna-wash-the-Thanksgiving/Christmas-dishes argument. We never once got to do Mom’s dishes or help her clean up. In her house, that woman was tough as all get-out if you tried to put yourself between her and her precious sink. (I love Mom so much more than words can express. She is my first earthly blessing, and I am eternally thankful for that.)
Ever since Mom had to quit cooking our private family feast a few years ago, Suzanne and I seem to have fallen into an unofficial tradition of going out to a ritzy restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner—usually at the brilliant BAMBARA, in Salt Lake. We took her parents there for T-giving with us one year. We invited Rowan and Cameryn to go with us for tomorrow’s feast, but they are young and in love, and they have made other plans that I’m sure are more exciting than spending time hanging with us two old broads. 🍽 🍗 🥖 🥗
NOTE: Be sure to steal a moment tomorrow to check-in with us here at TIE O’ THE DAY. I’ll be wearing the infamous felt turkey necktie creation which has quickly become a Thanksgiving tradition. I’d wear the bulbous necktie to dinner at the restaurant tomorrow, but it’s so bulky and sticky-out-y that I’m afraid it food might get spilled food on it, or it might even get in the way of me eating anything at all. And we can’t have any of that on the bigliest feast day o’ the year.