A turkey of a post

There’s nothing like the holidays – absolutely nothing.

That being said, it's probably obvious that I'm not the biggest fan of the holidays. For me, Halloween is the gateway holiday, after you walk through the Halloween portal, it’s all downhill until the blessed release of January.

It’s not that my parents scarred me with boxing tournament holidays, no way. Every year dad would tell the story about going out and shooting a turkey for dinner, and how his cat, Tommy, made a desperate leap with teeth and claws at the bloody bird as he brought it into the house. It was a legendary story at our house.

Christmas was filled with lights and old beloved ornaments would make their way out of their cocoon of tissue wrapping to be lovingly placed on the tree. Silver and gold.

I learned about electricity one Christmas early in life when I plugged a string of old-style C9 Christmas lights and got a jolt that knocked me six feet into the Christmas tree. Apparently, tinsel in the 1960’s was made of aluminum of some kind. To this day, I refuse to put tinsel on my Christmas tree.

But in our family, Thanksgiving is about the food. For me, food has memories that live and breathe.

There was the time my mother put the Thanksgiving turkey in the oven, prepared succulent mashed potatoes and an assortment of vegetables and tangy cranberry sauce. That day mother remembered to wear her June Cleaver pearls and heels but forgot to turn the oven on and didn’t check the turkey until she felt it was time to make the gravy. I remember my old-coot of a grandfather had tears in his eyes when he realized he would have to wait several more hours to eat. It’s the only time I’ve seen a grown man cry over turkey.

In her 50’s my mother reached that point in her life, as most middle-aged women do, when she didn’t want to deal with the hassle, clean-up, preparation and exhaustion associated with the holidays. Her answer was simple, a six-pack of Coors and a can of pineapple was how she decided to celebrate major holidays. My dad and I would flee to grandma’s house in the city, where the toasty aromatic scents of cooking turkey would caress your nose like a long-lost lover. Grandma, who even at 95 still stood as tall as any man, could make rich-brown gravy and in her good, German haus-frau belief system, all were encouraged to ladle it freely over everything from potatoes to apple pie. Dinner was effortlessly prepared with no histrionics and lovingly served. When grandma yodeled that dinner was ready, you moved your German butt to the table. She didn’t call you twice.

At the dinner table, my seat was a short stool with a lumpy pillow and the table was decorated with delicate china plates and spotless crystal. Each plate was piled high with turkey or ham and potatoes nestled next to vegetables. As with any dinner at grandma’s, next to my place setting was a small juice class of Rheinlander beer. Holidays were special at grandma’s.

Nowhere on grandma’s table was the so-called “traditional” favorite, Green Bean Casserole.

For me, Green Bean Casserole is still the symbol for the stress of the holidays. I detest the commercials and ads that tell me I need to make it for those that I love on Thanksgiving. I’m told via media that GBC is an ancient part of the holiday, like that’s what the pilgrims ate for their first Turkey Day. My best guess is someone at Campbells put up all their casserole recipes up on a board and they threw a dart and it landed on GBC. With the flick of the wrist and shake of can of French fried onions, GBC was born. An electronic blitz of green beans hit the airwaves and before you knew it, GBC was proclaimed far and to be just as important to Thanksgiving as pumpkin pie.

I don’t think so. I know other people that one dish or another sets them off. GBC is my trigger, but for a friend of mine, it’s meatloaf, especially after his ex-wife threw a right-out-of the-oven pan of it at him, another friend gets wound up over tomato soup. I’m not alone in this.

This year, my family and I will celebrate Thanksgiving on Wednesday night, scheduling conflicts abound among our eight family members. Oldest daughter Kate will no doubt put on a culinary show, as she always does. A creative and exemplary cook, we still tease her about the macaroni and cheese she once made with sweetened condensed milk, and her color-coordinated Excel spreadsheet marked with 15-minute intervals. Turkey is red, potatoes are blue, corn is green, dessert is purple. With my family, we could just have pizza for T-day and it would be OK, it’s more about getting together around the big, Amish-made table and eating off of my mother’s china, 100 pieces she carried home on the plane all the way from Bavaria in the early 60s.

My house? It’s a GBC-free zone again this year. No green beans, no stress. Now, that’s a happy holiday.