How To Do Thanksgiving (In Case I Die)
A letter to my daughter.
Hi, it’s mom.
Consider this a heads up that I’m counting on you to help me with Thanksgiving this year. Do you remember how you sidled up to me in the kitchen last year as I was contemplating my sticky-note to-do list on the kitchen cabinets?
“You have to teach me how to do Thanksgiving in case you die,” you said.
“Absolutely. Help me now?”
You said yes, but it was a hesitant yes, and then you quietly disappeared while my head was in the refrigerator looking for eggs. I’m guessing you realized that Thanksgiving can’t be done while laying in bed watching Grey’s Anatomy.
That’s fine. But this is your year! Let’s do this! Someday I’ll visit your first apartment or whatever and drink wine out of a paper cup on your second-hand futon while you make me a single turkey breast with cranberries and mashed potatoes in your two-butt kitchen, and it will be delightful. Mostly because I will refuse to help you. It’s only fair.
But before we get to cooking, some context…
I suspect I make it look easy to throw a Thanksgiving meal for six or eight or twenty people–it definitely feels easy at this point–and I don’t want you comparing your first time hosting to my decades of practice. This isn’t Instagram. I’m 53 years old as I write this and have been hosting for the better part of 25 years. I wasn’t always good at it, but it was always fun.
🦃 In my twenties I spent the majority of Thanksgivings at your Grandpa Dave’s house where we’d have a fancy dinner with fine china in the formal dining room, which is a different eating area from the kitchen table where he eats breakfast. As an adult, I’ve never lived in a house with two different rooms in which to eat a meal—except for a brief period when I shared a house with ten other people and we had a kitchen table and a dining room table. But I feel like the ridiculous number of people living in that house canceled out the novelty of dining room choices.
Speaking of that giant house, one year when I was around 27 or 28 years old—before I met your dad—my roommates and I hosted Thanksgiving for about 20 people in that giant dining room. It was a grand craftsman style house near the the University of Washington with crown molding, built in bookcases, and a built-in buffet. I loved imagining it was my house. Like, that I owned it.
(I just looked it up, and Zillow says it’s currently worth about $2.5 million. The guy we rented it from in 1998 bought it for $392,000. I don’t think you’ll be buying a house in Seattle anytime soon.)
🦃 We lived in the Renton house for your first ever Thanksgiving, and your Grandpa Zug & Grandma Marilyn came up from California. You were eight months old, and I looked like a 42-year-old, but never mind that. I very smartly planned the timing of dinner during your afternoon nap so I could enjoy your Grandpa Gordy’s Famous Stuffing in peace. Is that why we do Thanksgiving at three o’clock in the afternoon?
The walls at the Renton house were still painted a dusty rose from the previous owners, which reminded me of my mom, and even though I love my mom dearly I was not into her dusty rose and country blue aesthetic. I would eventually repaint the walls to a rich eggplant color, and you would accidentally get into the paint can and lick the stir stick like it was a lollipop. The poison control hotline person said you’d be fine, but I can’t help thinking a Mr. Yuck sticker would have prevented the whole incident.
🦃 I have one memory of a Minnesota Thanksgiving when I was in high school. We—me and your Gamma and Grandpa Gordy—went to the cabin Up North with a bunch of extended family on both sides.
(This is how to talk Minnesotan. People go up north for the weekend from the cities.)
As you know from the few times we visited, the cabin and bunkhouse sleep close to 20 people if we need it to, and we were at max capacity that year. For some reason, your Grandpa Gordy veered from turkey that year and roasted a ham instead. I’m sure I was disappointed about the lack of stuffing and mashed potatoes and complained about it obnoxiously. I was kind of a brat back then, similar to how you are now.
Anyway, somebody brought a stomach bug with them, and by the time we were packing up to head home, most of us were throwing up. I went decades without eating ham because I could only remember the taste of it as it came back up.
This was a problem when I married your dad because he was an Easter Ham Person. I tolerated this for a few years because I love your dad and he loves ham. Thank God we discovered a baby back rib recipe that bumped ham from the Easter menu! We’ll never go back!
All this to say…
Sorry, I think I got off track. What was I saying?
Oh right—
If you want to learn how to do Thanksgiving, you need to get your ass back down to the kitchen and help.
Love you, bitch.
~ Mom ~
From The ZugHaus to Your House, Happy Thanksgiving!
That was a treat! Thank you for sharing so many Thanksgiving memories. You are funny and cool, regardless of hair style. 😎
Tough crowd!
Loving crowd!
Afraid to ask how y'all settle the marshmallow casserole question...