Originally, our up coming Thanksgiving was feeling unusually spare. As I can’t be indoors with Ravi (till she’s fully vaccinated) or our cousins and as Andi and Mike will be in Philly with their family and as Steven had planned to be at the cabin, overnight, our feast (ordered in) was to see me at our table with Will, David and Jessica. And naturally, I’ve felt wistful for festive Thanksgiving feasts prepared, lovingly, in years past, when anywhere from 25 to 35 loved ones had eagerly gathered from all over the country at our house, inclusive of a dear niece and nephew who’d been welcomed, over the years, to stay with us for the entire week so that they and their children could partake in our family’s knish-making tradition.
Though we were really bummed about Steven celebrating Thanksgiving at the cabin, I understood his decision. You see, I choose to believe that our son, who takes very good care of his parents hearts, would prefer to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with all of us on our patio; however, whenever he finds himself between a rock and a hard place—I’ll cushion his decision-making process so as not to become another hard place in his life.
Hopefully, next year will be better, as Ravi will be fully vaccinated, suggestive of our family enjoying each other, inclusive of holiday feasts, inside our home. And as all will continue to be welcomed with open arms, each one will determine his/her comfort level, as has always been true since the beginning of time.
In order to look at the bright side (so as not to feel glum), I’d thought to dust off our scrabble game to ‘liven’ our minds after dinner followed by lifting our spirits by taking a drive to ooh and ah over the twinkling beauty of holiday lights, filling our hearts with magical thoughts of happiness based in moments of family togetherness in years past and yet to come …
At the time that I’d penned this post, several days back, I’d not yet taken into account the fact that our holiday weekend would burst at the seams if even one more family activity had been added to—Thanksgiving on Thursday, Ravi’s seventh birthday on Friday, her back yard, bouncy house birthday party on Saturday, our cousins’ picnic in the park on Sunday, followed by lighting the first Chanukah candle on Sunday night. Whew!
Then, when we heard that Steven had decided to celebrate Thanksgiving with us, I was glad to have mustered the patience to honey my tongue so as to know that the change in my son’s decision-making process was his own.
As to these last two days, Will and David have peeled, chopped and boiled 5 pounds of golden potatoes before mashing them with fried onions, butter, salt and lots of pepper in readiness to roll dough, cut into circles sized to be filled with the well seasoned, mashed potato stuffing before frying several knishes at a time in bubbling oil within two large frying pans, thanks to Soila’s help at the stove. And though, ordinarily, five or six (or more) of us had gathered round our large L-shaped kitchen counter to turn this traditional task into a pre-Thanksgiving party, our current trio of knish makers, their good natures intact, have completed this feat in record time!
Today, Will and our youngest son will whip up our traditional sweet potato casserole after which David and I plan to string tiny twinkling lights on plants throughout our fairy garden as a magical surprise when the remote is placed into my grand daughter’s hand so that upon clicking the on-button, Ravi’s delight will burst forth to play with my own.🙋🏻♀️🙍🏼♀️ Annie
No comments:
Post a Comment