Holidays: November 2005 Archives

My mother came for Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful time. It snowed a little on Wednesday night. It was melted and gone by Thursday morning.
I prepared dinner and dressed the table.
Steven carved the turkey.
Starting Friday we began putting up Christmas decorations. Can you find Steven?
Colby and Gracie watched. Alot.
I had thought I wanted a Nikon D70s for Christmas. I decided Thursday I wanted the decorations for our fence more.
I worked on the fence. All day Saturday.
You are viewing my Christmas present. 405 feet of green branch garland. 60 red bows. 3 wreaths. The lights are up in the front of the house. We have hung 17 wreaths -so far. The staircase is dressed in lighted garland. My big tree is up. The mantle is decorated. The kids beds are dressed in Christmas linens. Their small trees are decorated. I forget what else. Decorations are well underway and almost finished. Invitations for our Christmas party go out tonight. The menu is planned. My mother made it back home in record time. For everything and everyone I am so very thankful. WMAWMM - I have been on my feet for the past 3 days. While Steven finished up the decorations on the 2nd story of the house I trimmed bushes, clipped hedges, pruned trees, mulched the peonies beds after I cut everything back to the ground. Steven and I also hauled a load of firewood and stacked it near the back door. I am tired and sore. I moved it ALOT this weekend. NaNoWriMo - I won't make it this year. I have too much going on.

Growing up this time of year was very special. I was raised in my grandparents home after my parents divorced. My mother worked the night shift in a cotton mill and my sister and I grew up with my mother's two youngest siblings. I always felt more like they were my brother and sister rather than my aunt and uncle. We were poor and didn't know it. There was always plenty of food on the table and we had what we needed but not a lot extra. When the holidays came around we were bountifully blessed with plenty of extras. Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter were the major events we celebrated. Christmas being the creme de la creme of all holidays. In order to get to Christmas we had to make it through Thanksgiving. I may start preparing and making purchases long before Thanksgiving and Christmas but I still hold firm that Thanksgiving dinner must be served and completed before Christmas decorations start going up. My grandmother prepared a feast for the holidays. We always had capon and dressing, ham, sweet potato pone, macaroni and cheese, collards, dumplings, peas or butterbeans, potato salad, deviled eggs, biscuits, cornbread, all sorts of pickles, relishes and jams, orange cake, chocolate cake, red velvet cake, extremely sweet iced tea -just to name the major items I can remember seeing piled onto plates. My grandmother always cooked a capon. When one could not be found (very rare occurance) she cooked a hen. I was probably 12 or 13 years old before I ever had turkey for Thanksgiving. To this day I prefer the capon to the turkey but they are not so easy to find. I wonder if it is a regional thing? My grandmother baked and cooked and prepared several days in advance of the big feast. Her kitchen was a flurry of activity. The house work was completed by the daughters -they also did a lot of washing up behind her while she masterfully created her bounty with perfection. The holiday was more than just special foods. It was about the entire family coming together. At the very minimum there would be 14 people at my grandparents table. At the most there would be 30 as we grew up and brought others to the table. No one was ever turned away. If there was food on the table guests were fed. The adults sat at the nice dining room table. Their conversations full of laughter and constant chatter. We children sat at the table in the kitchen. If the weather were warm we would be seated at the long banister on the back porch to eat. Occassionally an adult would come out to check on us, heap seconds on our plates or refill our tea glasses. We would strain our ears to hear what the grown up were talking about. We would make excuses to venture into the dining room. If it was something little ears did not need to hear we were told to go back out while the grown up finished their dinner. Raunchy jokes and other adult conversation was common place until things got too adventurous and my grandmother put a stop to the entire thing. She didn't put up with much off color humor. When my mother remarried and took us away to Georgia sometimes we hosted the family for Thanksgiving. My grandfather refused to eat wild game and once my mother cooked a venison roast and passed it off as prime rib. I don't think he ever knew that the majority of beef he ate at our house was actually deer. Even then the adults sat at the big table and us children were sent to another table out of the way. I think I was 19 years old before I got my turn to sit at the grown-ups table. My stepfather was an avid hunter. I remember clearly the years he went out and brought back a turkey for our dinner. Usually a big giant wild tom. He taught me to clean and prepare the carcass for roasting. It is a skill some may be too squeemish to learn but it is a skill I add to my list of things I can do (along with many other wild game). In my heart and mind the holidays are associated with food and family and a overwhelming spirit of love. It is a time when differences are aside and everyone is on their best behavior and a good time is had by all.* While it once was anticipated to go to my grandmother's house or to my mother's I have reached a point where I want to be at home and have traditions with our little family. I don't want to sit at someone else's table. I want to sit at my own. I want to create for my kids the exact same thing I had as a child. I want the spirit that my grandparnts created for us to infuse and enrich the lives of our children and some day our grandchildren. Being so far away from everything I know as 'home' is difficult during the holidays. Someone else's table doesn't offer the sights and sounds and smells that I grew up with. The food is foreign, there is no grown-ups table and children line the seats and misbehave and refuse to eat and spill things. I don't like chaos. I want the idealism I know from my childhood. Living in this part of Virginia is truely like being a stranger in a strange land -so is sitting at someone else's table. This year I can't travel far. My feet swell and I get carsick. We are staying home. My mother will arrive today. Although it means alot of work and planning and preparing I am so very much looking forward to sitting at our table tomorrow and eating the foods I grew up with. I considered cooking a Carrot Souffle and Egg Bread with Honey Butter, and Creamed Corn Pudding, or Sweet Potato Pone but I think I am going to prepare something more traditional from my grandmother's kitchen this year. I prefer a little bit of a lot of different things so there will be many dishes to taste. I will be preparing half recipes so as not to have a lot of leftovers. The only leftovers we look forward to are the BEST turkey sandwiches**** you can find the day after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving 2005 A Menu Roast Turkey Glazed Ham** Dressing Collard Greens Rutabagas Candied Yams Greenbean Casserole*** Deviled Eggs Pickles, Relishes, Olives and Jellies Biscuits Cranberry Sauce Giblet Gravy Sparkling Red and White Cranberry Cocktail for the children Pinot Grigio and Pinot Noir Gewurztraminer and Beaujolais***** Coconut CakeFresh Pumpkin Pie with whipped cream Where will you spend Thanksgiving? What will be on the table? *(The bickering and fussing comes after when someone feels like they where slighted etc, etc, etc ... My sister is now the reigning queen of feeling as if she has been slighted no matter the occassion.) **Thanksgiving ham is Honeybaked. Christmas ham is a peppered ham from Ham I Am. They are dressed up with pineapple rings and cherries and cloves and slid into the oven to heat through and cook the fruits. I cook my own ham for Easter. ***Colby loves green bean casserole and asked for it. ****Slices of leftover turkey. Fresh black pumpernickle bread. Mayonnaise. Creamed horseradish. Leftover cranberry sauce. Crisp lettuce. Salt. Pepper. It doesn't get any better than that. *****I had chosen my wines weeks ago and picked them up this week while out shopping. I am so happy to find that when I read this article I had made very good choices. The Gewurztraminer and Beaujolais are for backup. Just in case the first two bottles go quickly.