peas at a party

This is my 40th grown-up Thanksgiving.  (It’s 42 if you count 1982 and 1997.)  For the first 30 years, this has been “my” holiday.  Officially, it’s my holiday every other year since our family alternates Thanksgiving and Christmas each year with the “off” years referred to as “in-law” years.  But there are always a few strays with no in-laws extending an invitation and since John’s family lives far away, we end up having Thanksgiving at our house almost every year.  And that’s fine with me.  So it was a surprise to everyone when I announced that I am making something new for Thanksgiving this year.

Reservations.

Six of us are headed to the buffet in a beautiful, old San Antonio hotel.  We’ll get dressed up and drive downtown.  Someone else will do the planning and cooking and cleaning and flower arranging.  Someone else will worry about oven space and fret over how to keep everything warm.  Someone else will wash the dishes.  I’ll miss it all.  Well, not so much the dishwashing, but the rest from the run to the wholesale florist to the after-dinner Frisbee football on the playground at the end of the street.

Through the years, the planning has gotten easier.  I learned to say “yes” when someone asked, “Can I bring something?”  The list of must-haves kept growing until there isn’t much menu planning left to do.

One year we had two sweet potato dishes alongside the mashed potatoes.   Don’t ask.  (Here’s a tip.  Put the mashed sweet potatoes in a large baking dish.  Make a ring around the edge of the pan with the streusel topping.  Fill the center of the ring with marshmallows.  Bake.  Two groups satisfied with one dish.)

To satisfy two camps we have both homemade cranberry orange relish and the cranberry stuff out of the can.  But I draw the line at opening both ends of the can and sliding the “sauce” out with the little can lines still intact.  (Isn’t this an everlasting food, sort of like Peeps?)

The Thanksgiving memories add up over the years, such as the year we discovered The Stuff, the Cranberry Orange Relish quest, the year of molded butter, the broccoli and Cheese Whiz concept, and the year we lost my nephew’s fiance.  (We found her.)

We’ll make other Thanksgiving memories.  This will be known as the year we ate out.  And in time this holiday will find its way to another generation of hosts.  We’ll ask, “Can we bring something?”