Thanksgiving is a holiday best suited for large families.
Usually the O family spends our Thanksgiving at my in-laws. Due to the disproportionate number of ministers in my family, we also tend to celebrate Christmas at Thanksgiving as well, and sometimes even my birthday gets thrown into the mix.
This year was unusual. My mother-in-law is battling an illness and didn’t feel up to hosting the festivities, and by the time this situation developed, it was too late to really plan much of anything else. So, it was just the four of us.
Four is a dangerously small number.
First, cooking TD for four takes only slightly less work than cooking TD for forty (which we have done–I know what I’m talking about). So my wife will probably be sleeping in until noon. Maybe noon today, maybe noon tomorrow. Probably around the time I finish cleaning all the pots and pans.
Second, due to the local ordinances that mandate a certain diversity among desserts, there were times yesterday when pies outnumbered humans in the household. We managed to level the playing field last night, and I inflicted heavy casualties on them this morning during a daring pre-dawn raid. (I slipped into their encampment, armed with only a dessert fork, while they were nestled in their aluminum foil beds. Some of them never even woke up.)
The turkey is no longer a threat to anyone. It has been reduced to broth. However, if the pies and the tubers (there are still mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes unaccounted for) form an alliance, it could be a long day.
Third, if there’s only four people at dinner, and two of them are tots, and the third doesn’t like red wine, but the fourth one opens a bottle anyway (the last of the 2007 Beaujolais Nouveau–the perfect wine for turkey!) then there will be bad jokes and silly things posted to blogs later.
Anyway, I hope you all have wonderful stories to tell, when you get back from stimulating the economy or whatever it is you’re doing this morning.
