....Thanks living

The holiday season is approaching. Actually according to the commercials and stores, Christmas is here. I have had mixed emotions over the last couple of days of what seems to be the slow evaporation of Thanksgiving. The child in me still yearns for the Thanksgivings full of food, laughter, and fun. That child yearns for "home". In reality, that "home" is gone and that child has created her own "home" which is somewhat bittersweet. Sadly, my mother and her mother died within 1 year of each other, they were the most important and influential women in my life. They were total opposites, but they had one similarity....an insane love for the holidays. Since there is no "home" to go visit to recreate those beautiful distant memories, and there is not enough alcohol or drugs available to assemble together what is left of my dysfunctional family, I try to create my own.

Last year, we spent Thanksgiving at an Ihop. I was quite disturbed at first. The Divas were in heaven. They practically had the whole restaurant to themselves. As I sipped my coffee, I was comforted by their giggles. There was no dysfunction. Holy hell....was I happy and at peace? I did feel as if I were cheating the Divas. They needed the turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, and a game of  Life to be complete in the world. They needed the homemade rolls, the pear salad, and the "good silverware" aka as the forks that stabbed the back of my throat. They needed the hams, and the pies, and the German chocolate cake. My mother's mom, my grandmother or as I called her my "Maene" managed to create a spread for years that could feed the entire community. I would watch as she scolded her three daughters, one being my mother, for giggling during prayer or sneaking a pinch of the caramel cake. It was seriously like fucking Camelot on that side of the family...surreal. From that side of the family, I got my ability to recreate some shit that would make Martha Stewart tear up. I have baked, cooked, hosted, and decorated some pretty fabulous fucking feasts trying to get a hint of that fix that I long for only to realize that after half a bottle of wine, I am pissed and frustrated. One year, I looked around at the attendees of my pieced together family and friends and realized the main characters were missing. No matter how hard I tried the ingredients I needed the most were unattainable.

Thank goodness, in my childhood, I was also exposed to my father's side of the family who offered something totally opposite from Camelot. My father's side offered a variety every year similar to Christmas Vacation. Barbeque..chicken...turkey and maybe even pizza were items on the menu. The only two things that were constant: the out of the box "sock it to me cake" and a 5 hour game of Spades. My father's mother aka Grandma Alice is still alive and a firecracker to say the least. She had a stroke in the 80s that left her "different". Some years (mostly around the holidays) she was blind in one eye and some years she wasn't. Some years she was apparently "paralyzed" until it was time to jump out of her chair to claim that my grandfather wouldn't touch her anymore and she was going to die the following Friday. My grandfather would kindly reply while playing spades..."Awe, Alice, nobody wants to hear that shit." And I would giggle and somehow my heart was warmed by the behavior.  From that side of the family, I got my ability to recreate a comedic act that Richard Pryor would laugh at.

"Thanksgiving is the day when you turn to another family member and say, 'How long has Mom been drinking like this?' My Mom, after six Bloody Marys looks at the turkey and goes, Here, kitty, kitty." - David Letterman

Both families gave me two polar opposite pictures of Thanksgiving. A fairy tale and a comedy. I consider myself blessed to have had those two. When I am not trying, searching, or longing, I see a glimpse of both sides recreated in my everyday life. The scent of pecan pie or a good ole "nobody wants to hear that shit" reward me with the memory of "home". The "home" that takes up residence in my heart and my soul and where it must stay because as stated earlier the ingredients have expired.

The SBF finally decided a couple of years ago that the dysfunction was just not worth putting ourselves through....especially being that no one on my side of the family really drinks. BLASPHEMY!! I swear I think we would all get a long a little better if every one had a bottle of wine or too. For the second year in a row, I will not be up till 4 am cooking a fucking ham with pineapples and cherries strategically placed on it. I will not be at our local grocery store asking a random stranger how the hell do you cook a frozen turkey the night before Thanksgiving. I will not be up making my favorite sweet potato casserole. Awe......the infamous sweet potato casserole: one year, the oldest Diva came to me on Thanksgiving Eve and told me there was a "toon toon" on the floor. Well, "toon toon" is what we call our privates in the Davis household. Bewildered, I asked her numerous times..."What? Where?". Each time she innocently responded "there is a toon toon on the floor". Flustered, I grab her sweet little hand and asked her to take me to the toon toon. As I walked, I thought about all of the SOBs I would call the SBF that day for leaving out his "toys". I was shocked when she pointed down to a pecan half on the floor and looked up me with the a huge smile. "See mommy, there is a toon toon right there." Chopped pecans are obviously an important ingredient in my sweet potato casserole. Pretty fucking hard to cut up a bunch of pecans without thinking about toon toons. Toon toons everywhere. Pecan halves are no longer allowed in our house. Oreos are not either, but that story is for another day.

So, this year, we are eating at our local church that is serving the community. Once again, I was all like "Shit. What am I doing with my life?" I felt the internal struggle resurface on whether I am cheating my Divas again. I then remember I am chasing something that just cannot be and if I continue chasing that "home", I won't reap from the beautiful "home" I have now. My Divas will have various memories of many different types of Thanksgivings and I pray the varieties give them a
spark about them. A spark that will enlighten them, comfort them, and nurture them. I have many years to screw their lives up and I just can't let myself believe that eating pancakes on Thanksgiving will be the topic on the couch at their psychiatrist's office. If so....those bitches are pretty lucky. Confession: some days, I do dream of the Divas coming home on Thanksgiving with their families and the beautiful feast of food, flowers, cakes, cookies, wine, music, and games I will present to them and then the circle of life will be complete. Giggle.......

I wonder if Thanksgiving has lost it's appeal to some of us because we are yearning to recreate the impossible or that families are less "cookie cutter". Is it too hard for us to say, those memories were great, but they are not my current reality? Or my family is fucking nuts and I don't feel like being bothered? Basically..."It is what it is". Maybe we have all bought into what it should be and have rejected what it truly is. For one day, you are suppose to put aside all of the skeletons in the closets, feast, and avoid drinking too much and cussing out your uncle. There's just food and fellowship...fellowship that can bring up memories both good and bad. Fellowship that can lead to family fights, inappropriate comments, cursing, drinking, medicating, sneaking out to smoke a cig, and vowing never to return....

Unlike Christmas, there are no gifts presented at Thanksgiving to mask the sight of  the empty chair of the loved one that is no longer present or the gifts from the cousins that you only see once a year but manage to get you something that proves you are indeed related and not complete fucking strangers. It's just a time for giving thanks. A thanks that may come out as a "thanks for being a jackass all those years" after that second glass of bourbon. Or "thanks for biting my nipple out of anger over a doll that time when I was seven" which really made breastfeeding go sooooo well. Found this to further support my theory........

Whatever your "story", "situation", or your "home" may be, Thanksgiving should still be celebrated and celebrated for what it simply is. A day to fellowship with whomever...wherever....however and give thanks. A thanks to just living. Plain and simple

So however your Thanksgiving turns out...whether it is good or bad...you are living and that is something to give thanks for and celebrate. Living takes balls. Giggle

"Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often." – Johnny Carson

Cheers and Happy Living!!