Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Turkey Day

Turkey is my least favorite of holiday meals. There are numerous points that I find tedious and pointless in it's preparation. I will try to explain my dislike of this holiday tradition here.

Growing up we always had 5 bajillion people at our house for Thanksgiving and of those 5 bajillion people at our house 3 or 4 of them did any preparation, clearing or cleanup of that celebration. I, was always one of the unlucky ones to drudge through the day.

I'd be up early, excited, as children often are during the holiday season. Anticipating mostly, my uncle Jim and his contribution to the party, which was always booze and junk food! We rarely got junk food at our house and this was a treat, treat, treat. We loved Uncle Jim.

That anticipation and sense of excitement would soon die as my mother put me to work (during the Macy's Parade) on the "relish" tray. YUCK. Slicing pickles, opening cans of ripe olives, smashing up the cranberry sauce. Blah! Then when my uncle showed up with the pate' and caviar and exotic I had to plate and make that attractive.

Then on to the cheese tray, another of my duties. Cutting and arranging various cheeses, pepperonis and an assortment of crackers on trays for everyone else to wolf down in five minutes only to be refilled again by me. And again when my uncle showed with the expensive and exotic (at least to my family, at that time) cheeses and crackers I would have to add and arrange those in the display.

All this time smelling a wonderful HUGE turkey roasting in the oven with it's sausage and sage dressing. It smelled so wonderful!

That is until I didn't notice the smell anymore cuz I was busing helping my mom make the rest of the dinner, setting the table and bringing everything into the dining room.

Then, while I had 4 able-bodied brothers in an incredibly socially enlightened house, who do you suppose did the cleaning up and dishes? The females.

Oh yes, lots to be thankful on Thanksgiving. Shit, I'd love it if I had someone completely cook my dinner, supply me with appetizers, set the table for me, serve the food and clean up.

Unfortunately, that isn't how it worked in my house growing up.

Thanksgiving SUCKS!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well, not only do I remember doing all you mention here, once I moved away I had to eat two Thenksgiving meals and only the females at my in-laws did the dishes, also. It got to the point that when I thought of Thanksgiving all I thought of was washing dishes. Things are different today. I do most of the cooking, but I don't do the dishes. (But I do miss the family get-togethers, just not washing dishes.)