Thanksgiving 2019

We have a brand new Thanksgiving tradition! On the day before Thanksgiving when we were up to our elbows in cooking, and when the littlest of boys had played independently too long and broke into a rough-and-tumble fistfight like a bunch of puppies, I pulled everyone in the family together for homemade hot cocoa and listening to Mama read a short story I had only just discovered that week: "An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving" by Louisa May Alcott.

This story is absolutely delightful! I finished it in a second sitting at bedtime, so it wasn't long, maybe requiring 40 minutes to read aloud. The plot is that seven children (ranging from 16 down to tiny tots) are left home alone on Thanksgiving when their parents must rush to sick Grandmother's side, so they try to cook the Thanksgiving meal themselves because surely it must be "easy," and you, the reader, can imagine the hi-jinks and mishaps that ensue! I can assure you this was perfect reading smack in the middle of all of our trying to cook Thanksgiving dishes.

This year I more successfully than ever before tried to meditate while cooking and working upon the fact that this is the Norman Rockwell moment.

This--the jolly noises and the fighting noises, the messes of cooking and of childhood creativity, the bustling activity, the grand plans--this is the life!

It is so overwhelming to me--I don't know about you--to get a single meal on the table that requires days of planning, setting the table beginning several days in advance, and two days of cooking, all while keeping the house beautiful and maintaining care and feeding of my brood which--again, I don't know about you--is already a full-time job.

It would be so easy to dump the kids on TV for a few days straight while I work solo like a maniac. Alternatively, we've had numerous babies right near this holiday season, so for some Thanksgivings we have happily bought pre-made meals from the grocery store deli because it was already stretching my abilities just to open all the packages and heat them to come out at the same time! (Those years created fond memories in their own ways, too.) But this year, boy, did I try to take the opportunity to live the entire Thanksgiving week with my children and to involve them.

We took the whole week off of school and I told myself that all their involvement WAS EDUCATION. (Have you seen the plethora of cooking school storefronts for kids, cooking classes online for kids, cooking mail-order kits for kids, all of which cost big bucks and often professional teachers?)

On Monday, we held a family meeting with the oldest children to plan the dishes. They had input! They were involved in my making the chart showing every dish, what day it was to be cooked, and by whom.

I assigned each child at least one dish to cook and helped according to how much they needed (which might mean side-by-side the entire time or my presence merely peripherally while I worked on a different project and was available for questions).

Four-year-old making boxed cornbread

Two-year-old doing water play while 8-year-old teaches 6-year-old how to make cranberry sauce

Having my matron aunt visiting was extremely helpful because I could be pairing with some children while she paired with others, always teaching, always modeling. She regaled them with childhood family tales while they all peeled potatoes and apples and they wouldn't have left her side even if they could.

She made learning how to iron the linens so enjoyable for the two girls that they were begging to iron more (which is hilarious because my husband once asked me sincerely after a decade of marriage, "Do you know how to use an iron?").

I tried valiantly this week to find ways for the children to entertain themselves and to be entertained in ways other than TV.

One morning while I was cooking breakfast, they were getting out of hand when I used up the last eggs in the container, so immediately I tossed them the egg carton and some markers--that's it!--and set them to work making caterpillars.

They spent time playing board games, Flexees, Magformers, Legos, and dominoes; teaching themselves how to sing duets; and playing (so much!) Christmas music on piano and violin. All of this resulted in game pieces everywhere, violins left out, sheet music fluttering to the floor, and a combination of my constant parenting to tell them to pick those items up and my doing extra clean-up myself, but I told myself silently inside a thousand times that THIS IS THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE WE ALWAYS WANTED.

On Thanksgiving day itself, Auntie and her son managed the turkey (thankyouverymuch).

Children drew name tags for the table . . .

. . . and they spent much time outdoors in the sunny 55 degrees playing in leaves and climbing trees.

After dinner, John rose to this week's challenge from his Fraternus group: that the teenage boys should do all the dishes on Thanksgiving day! So, Auntie and I sat outside with our feet up and watched more hi-jinks in the leaves as the sun set on a wonderful day.

Our day concluded with pies and more board games!

Thanksgiving Menu 2019:

Turkey . . . . . cooked by Auntie
Gravy . . . . . cooked by Daddy

Sweet potato casserole . . . . . cooked by Mama
Fettuccine Alfredo with homemade sauce . . . . . cooked by 12-year-old
Green beans with sliced almonds . . . . . cooked by Mama
Shaved Brussels sprouts with bacon . . . . . cooked by Auntie
Homemade Rice-a-Roni . . . cooked by 11-year-old
Grandmom's cranberry sauce . . . . . cooked by 8-year-old
Bread rolls . . . . . store-bought frozen, cooked by Mama

Pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream . . . . baked by 12-year-old
Apple pie with vanilla ice cream . . . . . baked by Mama