I’m Not Saying Our Thanksgiving Meal Was Bad…Okay, Yes I Am

Occasionally, I feel like I mostly have it together, not in the way that people who have it together have it together—I mean, I’ve been living in the same ratty gray leggings most of the week and eating an inadvisable number of dairy-free, plant-based fake cheese slices, and frozen pizza for lunch—but, I'm also functioning as a semi-responsible adult who pays her bills on time, has a regular skincare routine and usually remembers to floss.

That shaky sense of capability is easily destroyed, though. Take Thanksgiving, when I thought I’d make life easier by having our turkey and a few sides catered. 

All I had to do was make a few charts and graphs to coordinate cooking times, fit everything in the oven at appropriate temperatures and times, set four different alarms, do advanced algebra to calculate when all the food would be simultaneously and sufficiently heated, and pay attention to absolutely nothing else but cooking to ensure it was made perfectly and everyone enjoyed a delicious meal.

Well, the family (sans Bill, who was snacking on the lanai and watching a movie) started telling stories about Thanksgiving past at Aunt Ritas’ house. We were laughing, and I lost track of time. That meant the carefully planned fitting-the-food-in-the-oven schedule got waaaaaayyy off track, and we ended up with average at best turkey, undercooked mushy stuffing, raw potatoes, and overcooked green beans. The meal was kind of…not good. Thank goodness we were already stuffed with too many appetizers because I did manage to have my shit together for that portion of the day.

Here we are a few days later, and my guilt about that meal disaster is still festering. I have aged into the role of matriarch, and it was my responsibility to ensure everyone had tasty Thanksgiving food. I dropped the ball. I have no excuses…well…actually, I do. I was tired and fighting a cold. We were laughing and having so much fun that the last thing on my mind was the mental gymnastics it would take to coordinate the turkey temperature with the potato temperature with the Brussels sprouts temperature with the stuffing temperature with the green bean temperature. Oh, and the caterer who sent instructions to just heat the already-cooked potatoes for 15 minutes forgot to cook the potatoes. But still, it was my job to make sure everything was right. In retrospect, I should have just cooked all my tried-and-true staples.

You might think horribly of me, but I am going to say this: Maybe Bill—the husband who is always saying, “We’re a team!” like a corporate kumbaya seminar coach—could have taken a minute from eating an 8-pound platter of ham on the patio while watching the Frozen movie for the 1048584737 time (and yes, you read that right) and helped just a little.

Yes, yes. I went there. I’ll LET IT GO, but I swear to God we’re going out to dinner next Thanksgiving because no one around here feels like schlepping around in the kitchen when we could be relaxing at a restaurant, drinking vodka and laughing instead. But that’s also a slippery slope because I believe people should not have to work on Thanksgiving. They should be home with their families, and everything - restaurants included - should be closed, so eating out would make me a guilty hypocrite. Maybe hotdogs and hamburgers next year, then I can stew in the guilt over serving picnic food?

I don’t want to fixate on the crappy food I served for…let’s be realistic about the way my brain works…the rest of my life. Except I probably will. I want to be the sort of person who can laugh off everyday stresses without going straight to crushing doom and non-stop guilt. I would also like perkier boobs and not to have a dairy allergy, but that doesn’t seem to be in my future, either.

I suppose the lesson here is that you must play the cards you've been dealt. I’ve spent too much of my life wishing I was different from who I am, and at 58, I’ve tried all the ways of life-hacking my way out of guilt and worry, and most don’t work, so it is what it is. There are other things I am good at, like functioning on a can of diet Mountain Dew and four hours of sleep, knowing the words to every song on the Jesus Christ Super Star album because my parents played it non-stop in the 1970s, and being able to name the artist and title of most 1980s pop music.

Anyway, bitching and insecurity aside, my wish is that Thanksgiving 2024 will be remembered for the laughs and not the crappy food (“Hey! Anyone remember the year mom served us that inedible Thanksgiving dinner with turkey that looked like lunchmeat and we were all praying McDonald’s was open?” HA HA HA HA HA!) and that I will eventually get it together and not beat myself up over every dumb mistake, because geez, this shit is keeping me awake at night.

Of course, we had Thanksgiving crafting time, continuing the tradition Aunt Rita started 50 years ago.

We made Christmas ornaments by melting pony beads in cookie cutters. None of us died from the toxic-smelling fumes that melting plastic emits, so I’ll call that a win.