My brother’s favorite way of dividing the world into two kinds of people is to point out that there are people who relax by doing something and there are people who relax by doing nothing. Me, personally, I’m a “doing nothing” sort of person – my idea of relaxation involves very little motion of any kind – but I am not the planning part of the family and Kim is very much a “doing something” person. I generally end up having fun at these somethings and being glad that I did them, it has to be said, though I often end up rather tired.
Such was our Thanksgiving break.
I don’t know if you noticed, but Thanksgiving was incredibly late this year. Most people down at Home Campus were ready for it to be about a week – maybe two – before it actually was, and that’s just the faculty and staff. Fortunately for me three of my five classes didn’t meet that week – I told my First Year Seminar students that they had to schedule an advising appointment to choose classes for next semester instead, and my Zoom class goes out not only to Far Northern Campus but also to anywhere up to half a dozen high schools in that area, all of whom are closed that entire week because it’s Deer Season (a capitalized event in Wisconsin) and it just wasn’t worth holding class for the two or three students who would show up. They’d probably just sit there and be unhappy because they hadn’t gotten their deer yet.
We had two Thanksgivings, because one was clearly not enough.
I’m okay with that, actually. Thanksgiving has become one of my favorite holidays over the years mostly because it is one of the very few holidays on the American calendar that does not ask for more. It simply asks us to be glad for what we already have. You don’t get gifts. You don’t get candy. There are no fireworks. You’re not expected to buy flowers. It’s just there to remind you that even with all of the problems in the world you probably still have things to be grateful for and you should acknowledge those things now and then.
This is why I have very little patience for the killjoys who insist that the holiday is somehow irrevocably tainted by its origins or the football games or whatever. I am well aware of such things. But you know. That’s not what I’m celebrating here.
Our first Thanksgiving this year was with Kim’s side of the family – our annual jaunt up to Rory and Amy’s house. We are responsible for many of the baked goods for this event – the year we had to stay home because we all had the flu was calamitous that way – so we spent that morning baking all sorts of things. Pumpkin pie. Apple cranberry pie. Buns. Biscuits. And, of course, pizzelles, which are my contribution to all of this. I’m not sure I’d be allowed in without them, and at this point I’m not going to test that theory. Plus they’re fun to make. I set up my pizzelle iron in front of the television and watch large men chase a small object for an hour or so while I make them, and then the whole house smells of anise. There are worse ways to spend an hour.
Kim, Oliver, and I piled into the car as soon as the last pie was out of the oven and headed on up to the festivities. Lauren and Max drove over separately, though there was some confusion as to when we should arrive so they got there well before we did. It is strange to know that your child can just get there on her own with her boyfriend – it feels like a whole new stage of people gathering from separate places, even if it isn’t all that different from us picking them up on the way. Not sure why.
The evening was the usual chaos of food and family, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. I usually end up sitting in the front room or the dining room and talking with whoever happens by, which this year was mostly either Grandpa or Amy’s dad, along with our subgroup. Sometimes I’d wander into the kitchen and talk with people there, which had the advantage of also allowing me to graze on the appetizers set out on the big kitchen island. It’s all good. I don’t seem to take many pictures at Thanksgiving for some reason – perhaps I’m just happy to be part of a holiday instead of trying to record it as I usually do with events – but I got a couple.
Such was our Thanksgiving break.
I don’t know if you noticed, but Thanksgiving was incredibly late this year. Most people down at Home Campus were ready for it to be about a week – maybe two – before it actually was, and that’s just the faculty and staff. Fortunately for me three of my five classes didn’t meet that week – I told my First Year Seminar students that they had to schedule an advising appointment to choose classes for next semester instead, and my Zoom class goes out not only to Far Northern Campus but also to anywhere up to half a dozen high schools in that area, all of whom are closed that entire week because it’s Deer Season (a capitalized event in Wisconsin) and it just wasn’t worth holding class for the two or three students who would show up. They’d probably just sit there and be unhappy because they hadn’t gotten their deer yet.
We had two Thanksgivings, because one was clearly not enough.
I’m okay with that, actually. Thanksgiving has become one of my favorite holidays over the years mostly because it is one of the very few holidays on the American calendar that does not ask for more. It simply asks us to be glad for what we already have. You don’t get gifts. You don’t get candy. There are no fireworks. You’re not expected to buy flowers. It’s just there to remind you that even with all of the problems in the world you probably still have things to be grateful for and you should acknowledge those things now and then.
This is why I have very little patience for the killjoys who insist that the holiday is somehow irrevocably tainted by its origins or the football games or whatever. I am well aware of such things. But you know. That’s not what I’m celebrating here.
Our first Thanksgiving this year was with Kim’s side of the family – our annual jaunt up to Rory and Amy’s house. We are responsible for many of the baked goods for this event – the year we had to stay home because we all had the flu was calamitous that way – so we spent that morning baking all sorts of things. Pumpkin pie. Apple cranberry pie. Buns. Biscuits. And, of course, pizzelles, which are my contribution to all of this. I’m not sure I’d be allowed in without them, and at this point I’m not going to test that theory. Plus they’re fun to make. I set up my pizzelle iron in front of the television and watch large men chase a small object for an hour or so while I make them, and then the whole house smells of anise. There are worse ways to spend an hour.
Kim, Oliver, and I piled into the car as soon as the last pie was out of the oven and headed on up to the festivities. Lauren and Max drove over separately, though there was some confusion as to when we should arrive so they got there well before we did. It is strange to know that your child can just get there on her own with her boyfriend – it feels like a whole new stage of people gathering from separate places, even if it isn’t all that different from us picking them up on the way. Not sure why.
The evening was the usual chaos of food and family, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. I usually end up sitting in the front room or the dining room and talking with whoever happens by, which this year was mostly either Grandpa or Amy’s dad, along with our subgroup. Sometimes I’d wander into the kitchen and talk with people there, which had the advantage of also allowing me to graze on the appetizers set out on the big kitchen island. It’s all good. I don’t seem to take many pictures at Thanksgiving for some reason – perhaps I’m just happy to be part of a holiday instead of trying to record it as I usually do with events – but I got a couple.
We got back fairly late, moved the leftover bits of the pies from the van to my car since there was no room in the fridge and at this point in the year the garage is essentially one big cold storage unit, and left them there until Sunday when we had Thanksgiving II: The Turkening.
We wanted to do a smaller Thanksgiving on our own to go with the big family feast, perhaps just as a way to have more leftovers, and Sunday was pretty much the only day that we had open for that. And for reasons that will be explained in a future post, it worked out well as far as getting together, as Lauren and Max had come by on Saturday. So Sunday it was.
Kim did most of the cooking for this one – turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, “dad rice,” cranberry sauce, and Aunt Linda’s Baked Pineapple Dish without which no holiday is complete, which is a lot for five people but then the leftovers were the point after all. We’ve already put Thanksgiving III: Bride of Turkey on the menu for later this week. My role was mostly hauling the turkey up from the basement to be prepped for cooking and then getting the table extended and the dishes set. We always bring out our wedding china and the silverware I inherited from my parents for this sort of thing, as well as the silver-rimmed glasses that were my dad’s pride and joy, since you might as well use the stuff.
Also, now that it is December and past the official date of Thanksgiving I will acknowledge the existence of Christmas, so Oliver, Max, and I put up the one stand of blue Christmas lights that we always have across the front of the house, a task that was both easier (more hands, plus no giant bushes in the front to work around this year) and harder (15F without the wind chill) than usual, but now the lights are up and glowing peacefully.
We had a lovely meal.
Afterward we all ended up in the living room collectively working on an online geography quiz because that’s just how we roll. You get a blank map of Africa and have to name all of the countries (we got about 95% of them) and then Europe (100%), Asia (95% or so), Oceana (100% but there aren’t that many), South America (100%) and North America (which has a lot of countries if you include all the Caribbean islands and we would have gotten 100% if the quiz had accepted the answer we kept trying to give it until it decided we were wrong and then gave us that same answer). You have fun your way, we’ll have fun our way.
Thus was our Thanksgiving break bookended. Of course, that left the two days in between, and naturally both of those were filled with events as well.
Something, not nothing, after all.
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