Thanksgiving at Grandma’s

In my mind, I’ve already skipped to the leftovers. That’s the best part of Thanksgiving. No, I take that back. The best part is the fact that I am fortunate enough to have leftovers in the first place.

The second best part of Thanksgiving is the little cache of memories I have from the family gatherings when I was a child. My maternal grandparents lived in a tiny little two-bedroom house but that, of course, didn’t stop them from having all six of their children, with their spouses and offspring, home for Thanksgiving. It wasn’t the house the children grew up in, but it was the family, so when all were gathered on those Thursdays, there were twenty-nine  people  in that little house.

The kitchen was the biggest room, and as with most gatherings, family or otherwise, that’s where everybody wanted to be. It was warm in there, and filled with the aromas associated with the bird roasting in the oven, Grandma’s homemade biscuits, gravy, and candied yarns.  I remember quietly weaving my way through the adults to sneak a peek out the back door to the porch, and finding the prize of the day: Grandma’s fresh coconut cake, covered and chilling on top of the freezer. Alongside would be a couple of brown sugar pies, a bowl of potato salad and some questionable congealed concoction that grownups seemed to like.  The presence of that cake though meant that all was well and as it should be.

For some reason, Grandma never had a designated children’s table. This had to do with available space first of all, but after eight adults were seated at the kitchen table, it was every man, or child, for himself to find a place to sit at the cloth-covered coffee table in the living room, the borrowed card tables in the back bedroom, Granddaddy’s hassock, or the remaining odd chairs where you were obliged to balance plate, utensils and beverage in your lap and then manage to consume all that good food without it ending up on the rug.

We all helped our plates from the stove or the kitchen counters, in no particular order.

Parents assisted children in reaching the higher dishes and scooping up the hot food, buttering biscuits and ladling gravy.  In fact, the children mostly were served first, unlike a lot of family gatherings where the little ones have to wait till the grownups have helped their own plates.  I think our family got us out of the way so they could sit down and enjoy their meal without us bothering them for a while.  Six-year-olds sat next to old uncles and the teenage cousins clustered together to giggle and tell stories. Granddaddy sat at the head of the kitchen table, his usual everyday place, cleared his throat which was the signal for all of us to quiet down, and then he asked for the Lord’s blessing on food and family.

As soon as the Amen faded away, we could get down to the business of consuming our meal. I’m sure that from the outside of the house, it sounded like pandemonium, but on the inside, it was Thanksgiving as we knew it. Silverware clinking against plates, people laughing, demands for somebody to pass the mashed potatoes please, and   impatient children wiggling in anticipation of dessert. The meal, as good as it was, only delayed the biggest treat of the day.

When it was all over and the last plate washed, dried and put away, Granddaddy reclaimed his rocker in the living room and settled in for one of those I-couldn’t-possibly­ eat-another-bite naps. We children sat around him on the floor and watched as he drummed with his fingers on the arms of the chair and rocked a little, and then all movement slowed…he slept. All was right with the world.

I’ll never be a part of such gatherings again, the family having scattered and cooking their own special Thanksgiving feasts in their own homes. This year, though, I will have some dear friends around my table, a warm fire in the fireplace, and lots of wonderful food representing the blessings of our lives.  The best part of this Thanksgiving?  New and wonderful memories.