Holidays--Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a big family holiday for us. We always watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV in the mornings, had tons of food at noon, and, of course, spent the afternoon in a food-induced stupor watching college football on TV.

Every year, we celebrated Thanksgiving at Mommaw’s house. How she produced such big meals out of such a small kitchen is just a marvel to me. She had no food processor, no blender, no microwave oven, not even an electric can opener. All she had was a single oven range and her two hands. She had to have started cooking at 5:00 a.m. to have it all done by noon.

Each year she made the same menu. We had roasted turkey with a huge pan of cornbread dressing, and often there was also a ham. Every year there were candied yams, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, black eyed peas, green beans, gravy, cranberry sauce, and lots of butter and hot rolls. (Sometimes the rolls got a little black on the bottom and we had to peel that part off!) And there were always at least three kinds of pie (pumpkin, pecan, and either chocolate or coconut) and a big bowl of banana pudding for us kids for dessert.

When our whole family was gathered together, there were fifteen of us—too many to all eat at the kitchen table. So we children were relegated to eating in the living room on TV trays. TV trays are not much seen these days. They were simply a metal tray that snapped onto a folding metal stand. Mommaw always had seven or eight of them handy. Old, beat up and rickety, still they served the purpose of giving us kids a place to eat. And we loved being separated from the adults. It gave us some sense of independence, even though our mothers were really just a few feet away in the kitchen. We enjoyed the separation no doubt every bit as much as the adults did.

The usual order of events was this: the children would take their plates and make a circuit around the big kitchen table while the moms hovered strategically, dishing up spoonfuls of this and that onto their plates. We would then parade into the living room and carefully set our plates on our afore-chosen TV trays, which were free standing in the middle of the room. We would then wiggle our way onto our designated seats (Neal and Susie and I always got the couch, since we were the oldest), and the moms would push our TV trays up to our laps. Sometimes pillows and phone books would have to be brought out to adjust the height of the small fry and finally everyone would be settled.

Then Mommaw would say grace from the kitchen and dinner would begin. The eight adults would be seated at the big table in the kitchen and conversation would begin to flow. Every few minutes, a mom would appear in the living room asking who needed more rolls or iced tea, but for the most part we were expected to stay put behind our trays until the meal was over.

After we had eaten ourselves in to a stupor, the TV trays disappeared and the men folk took over the living room to collapse in front of the TV—unless they were going hunting, in which case they left right after the meal was over. Football was the name of the game on Thanksgiving afternoons. It was always college football, too: the Longhorns vs. the Aggies. This was made more interesting by the fact that my Uncle Wally was an Aggie and hated the Longhorns, so my dad and Uncle Bob always rooted for the Longhorns, just to be contrary. Since neither my dad nor uncle had been to college, it didn’t really matter to them, but what good is a football game without a little friendly rivalry, huh?

The women would, of course, still be in the kitchen, trying to clean up. There were no dishwashers back then, so all those dozens of dirty plates and bowls and glasses had to be washed and dried by hand. Not to mention the sticky, greasy pots and pans. Although I don’t ever remember being told to stay out of the kitchen (or the living room, for that matter), it was understood that you didn’t interrupt or bother the grown ups for anything less than a medical emergency immediately following Thanksgiving dinner.

If the weather was decent, we cousins would adjourn to the back yard to sit and rock on the porch swing and think up mischief. November in Houston is unpredictable and tricky. I can remember Thanksgivings where I wore short sleeved shirts or at the most a simple sweater and we would frolic outside in the Indian summer. Other times it would be cold, wet, and freezing, and we would be confined to the house for the afternoon.

My grandparents’ modest brick home had only 2 bedrooms. It was an unspoken rule that we didn’t play in my grandfather’s bedroom. In fact, I can hardly remember what it looked like, so seldom did I cross its threshold. No, our sanctuary was the front bedroom, which Mommaw always referred to as “Aunt Kay’s room” even long after my aunt had married and moved into a home of her own.

Seven children confined to one small bedroom for an entire afternoon is just a breeding ground for trouble. Squabbles inevitably broke out, and so gradually we were released from our confine into the rest of the house. Once the moms had finished in the kitchen we were usually welcomed back. Card games or dominos were popular choices around the old kitchen table. As the ball game played out, the men might migrate outdoors to stand around in the garage and smoke. The boys would often follow them and try to work up a little game of touch football.

Although you wouldn’t think it possible, we often ate another meal again that evening before we left for our individual homes. Since we didn’t have the convenience of a microwave, and the moms most definitely didn't want to wash any more dishes, we ate our food “cold”. Leftover ham and turkey and macaroni and cheese—all eaten cold and quite delicious. One of my favorite sandwiches during the holidays is one that my dad used to make: cold sliced turkey on white bread with real mayonnaise, topped with a scoop of cornbread dressing and a slice of jellied cranberry sauce, then mashed into a delicious savory wudge. Loaded with carbs, fat and calories, it's still the most delicious sandwich you can imagine and I still have one every year.

Immediately following our noonday dinner, the dads usually left to go hunting for the remainder of the holiday weekend, while the moms and cousins stayed at home. That didn't bother us though. We happily spent our time either shopping or getting ready for the biggest holiday of them all: Christmas!