Banishing the Chocolate Turkeys
Half asleep, on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, I recall I forgot to procure the foil-wrapped chocolate turkeys that always adorned my grandparents’ table at Thanksgiving. A formal affair, replete with linen tablecloths and napkins and discreet servants summoned by the bell underneath my grandmother’s foot on the carpet, the turkeys were the only bit of levity, arranged in procession from one end of the table to the other, pretty much eye level with little me, finally promoted from the children’s table. Was there still time?
For years, my mother presented our daughters with shiny turkeys, suspiciously the same one year to the next. Had she bought them in bulk and stored them in her present cabinet? And when we began to celebrate Thanksgiving at our own tables, I felt the chocolate turkeys were as essential as sweet potatoes topped with toasted marshmallows. I’d scour the shelves at Michaels or the grocery stores, snatching up the remaining foil lumps—we had to have chocolate turkeys; they were a talisman, essential to the celebration.
My husband, a vegetarian, dislikes Thanksgiving. He sees the whole run up to the meal as a waste of time, the sides the only part of the meal worth consuming. Churlish, he would prefer Chinese Food, which we do offer him on Christmas, but, so far, we have mostly held out on Thanksgiving. The sulker can’t always win. In fact, he’s a great sous chef when he chooses to be, and no one in our family is better at washing dishes or managing the puzzle of storing leftovers when there is too little room in the fridge(s). Our two daughters and our son-in-love (my second daughter’s affianced) manage the menu these days. I am allowed to shop and do menial taks, but the calculus of when to put the turkey in—this year, we are downsizing at Cole’s suggestion, and only preparing two turkey breasts—is up to them. I confess I’ll miss the dark meat. I noticed those yams aren’t on his menu, either, but some traditions must endure…
I love setting our table with heavy water goblets and a lace cloth spread over the green damask cloth I prefer. I enjoy laying out the good china, adding additional forks and spoons to the standard table setting. I did order fancy napkins that will, after the holiday, take their place under the sideboard with all the other fancy napkins we did not use up on other holidays. Perhaps, one day I’ll lay out only mismatched napkins—mistmatched teacups are considered chic these days—I read that somewhere. I like scouring the backyard for some sort of natural centerpiece. When the children were little, we painted their hands and pressed them onto sheets of card stocks, decorating their little handprints with feathers and glitter. We’d hang their creations on the dining room windows—I suspect those turkeys are somewhere in the attic in a dusty box.
Seth, my husband, will use his penknife to get the candles to fit inside the candelabras which, if polished, would not look out of place at Downton Abbey and definitely are too large for our table for seven. Still, they were my mother’s and I love them. The pies are coming from New York City, and I will miss the fun of clearing the counters to roll out crusts, but I know what is brought will be delicious. Our son will fly home Tuesday night; he won’t mind, I hope, that I’ve taken over part of his room for my watercolor studio—a folding table in front of his window, strewn with paints and brushes and half-done projects. Our oldest daughter is staying in NYC with her wife; it’s too long a haul for too short a stay; I will miss them being with us, but they’ll be here for Christmas, which is not so far off now. Maybe Seth will mend a couple of the dining room chairs we’ve broken over the twenty years we’ve lived here—they are waiting for him in his woodshop at the school I lead across the parking lot; one is conveniently placed in the dining room, its back laid carefully across its seat, a gentle reminder to him of my hopes. If not, some of us will sit on folding chairs.
This morning, I took a first pass at cleaning out the fridge, dumping half a dried-out lemon and some Crème Fraiche well past its prime. I know our predilection for keeping items past their expiration dates exasperates our children, just as my own mother’s habit made me shake my head. We are, many of us, tough on our parents. Sometimes, I think our children believe we are one step from the home, though I think my husband—grouchy though he sometimes appears over the holidays—have a few more good years in us. He is happiest on the lawn, setting up inflatables that delight the little girls in my school. Watching Michigan beat Ohio State also pleases him, so I offer a quiet hope for a Wolverine victory.
Families grow and shrink. Holidays mark time.
“Don’t you want to have Thanksgiving in Eagles Mere?” I asked our son earlier this fall.
“Absolutely not. I want to come home.”
Home. We have celebrated holidays in lots of different homes: in the house where I grew up, with Seth’s family in Arizona and New Mexico, at several houses in Eagles Mere, in overheated apartments in Manhattan, at Lyman House, here in Ohio. These days, home, in my mind, is less about the kitchen or the table and more about gathering, about gazing around the table at our family—thinking about the ones we miss and appreciating the ones that are with us. And I love the preparations, love the feeling of waking up on Thursday morning knowing that we are all focused on a shared endeavor.
When I wake up enough this morning to scooch up onto my pillows and slide my laptop from my bureau onto my knees, I google chocolate turkeys. There they are, the foil feathers apparently unchanged since 1963. I wonder if they make dark chocolate ones now? Would those taste better? They make them, but they look just like their milk chocolate pals. The party favors of my childhood were not particularly tasty; after you unwrapped the foil and bit off the legs, the hollowness you discovered within was disappointing, the chocolate grainy. So, I restrain myself. I do not purchase any turkeys. For me, they are nostalgia, memory, my grandparents, my mother, but unnecessary. Traditions evolve. The idea of the turkeys felt momentarily urgent, but no one actually eats them—not with pie and Susan Stamburgh’s cranberry sauce and a spicy mac n’ cheese our son-in-love prepares. I consign the little foil guys to memory, print my shopping list, head to the market.
