With Thanksgiving just days away, our thoughts turn to
food, family, friends and we might be a little frantic! Yes, the holiday meal and all that comes with
it can make us frantic. What to serve,
who to invite, who can’t sit next to who, who is allergic to certain foods,
should I ask others to bring items….all of these things can help ruin a
perfectly good holiday if you let them.
Back to family for a moment, they can literally make or
break a holiday meal…..let me explain why one Thanksgiving my husband and I
colored outside of the lines. Step back
in time with me and relax a moment.
I lived most of my adult life in the north and holidays
such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter provided opportunity for my
out-of-state uncle to visit. It was a
given, Uncle Pete we’ll call him, would be at the dinner table.
Now the problem with Uncle Pete was that he knew it all, he
could tell you how to cook a turkey, make gravy, get perfect mashed potatoes
and pick the appropriate wine – all the while doing absolutely nothing to add
to the meal or help in any way.
Since he was always invited to my parents’ home for
holidays once I remarried my husband and I invited him to share meals with
us. I was used to his banter at the
table, but others who met him the first time found him hard to deal with.
Thanksgiving rolled around and he complained about
everything, as usual. We kept our mouths
shut and let him ramble. He was old,
lived alone and complaining was his only joy in life I believe.
The following Thanksgiving, our last in New Jersey before
we moved south, we decided to pull a fast one on him. Instead of turkey and all the fixings we
decided to serve lasagna. My husband,
being part Italian, was into that idea and he made two huge pans of
lasagna. That with a big salad and nice
crusty bread was the menu.
While I did tell my parents and some of the other guests
about the menu, we didn’t let onto to Uncle Pete that things would be
different.
The day finally came, as did the family, and we got
everyone seated at the table. My husband
brought out the first pan of Lasagna and we waited for Uncle Pete’s
reaction. To our surprise (or maybe to
his surprise) he didn’t have one negative comment all throughout dinner. He actually praised the meal…..that was a
first!
You might not have to go to that extreme this Thanksgiving,
but if necessary feel free to color outside of the lines, do something a little different, and see what happens! It’s not really about the food now is it?
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Photo credit Pixabay
