I’m not going home for Thanksgiving. This really wasn’t a hard decision. Usually I have a near panic attack with the logistics, given it’s the only time of the year when I have to do math. My thinking goes something like this: If my flight is Wednesday afternoon, and I have to be at Reagan National Airport an hour in advance, and it takes 20-40 minutes to get to the airport by Metro and 15-20 minutes to get to the Rosslyn Metro by GUTS bus, then that means… yep, I have to skip all my Tuesday classes. Also, on a somewhat related note, how awesome is that airport? If I have a child I’m thinking of naming it Reagan National. I’m not a Republican, but I am a fan of efficient transportation hubs.
Now despite the travel, I still love Thanksgiving. The only other holiday that comes close, for me, is this Jewish one that commemorates the destruction of our second temple. The date always fell when I was at camp and we had the option of fasting, which I always refused. I would always tell counselors, “Let me get this straight: Today I don’t have to go to swimming and I get to make my own cheese sandwich? Why am I supposed to be sad, again?” But unlike on Tish’a’b’av (also a Star Trek villain), where I casually ignore a human atrocity, on Thanksgiving everybody casually ignores a human atrocity. And this wasn’t just some podunk ethnic cleansing. This was one group of people graciously inviting another group of people to dinner, and then they’re rewarded for their kindness when the latter says, “So … how are you at dealing with smallpox? … Oh, you don’t know what that is? … Whoops.”
And so to honor the first half of that story we consume massive quantities of food, which is fine by me. Meat is an issue for some but there’s also starch and sugar, so who could possibly have a problem with all three? The answer, quite conveniently, is my parents. My dad eats like he’s in a gulag, with a diet consisting of bread, cheese, and possibly some tomatoes if it’s New Year’s.
My mom has transitioned over the years from vegetarian to vegan to raw vegan. That means she has progressed, in the most progressive sense of the word, toward eating as God intended, if God wanted us to be deer. Scratch that, I wish a deer’s diet were pure enough for her. When I left high school, she bought a Vitamix, which meant she could fulfill her goal of stripping everything out of food except for its most elemental compounds. She basically had the eating habits of a detritus bottom-feeder. She has scaled back, though. Recently she told me she began eating bagels, employing a tone of rebelliousness I would have reserved for if I said I was motorcycling through the Jesuit cemetery.
Thankfully my dad prepares a turkey. I can’t have Tofurkey because I’m allergic to soy and, even if I wasn’t, I find it disgusting on an inherently patriotic level. My mom’s addition to the dinner, given her proclivity for all things natural, is her homemade cranberry sauce. I don’t know if you’ve ever eaten a straight cranberry, but it’s tart and bitter, like life in the cosmic sense. I once asked her why she didn’t add even a little sugar and she looked at me as if I asked why does the sun rise every morning or why is hot veggie concentrate an adequate lunch?
I’m not used to contributing to the actual meal. I’ve never had much experience with food preparation since my dad likes to cook in his own specific way and my mom believes the microwave gives you Crohn’s Disease. But I have become really good at slicing cucumbers for dressing-less salads. Once I did ask her what I could do to help, and she gave me a miniature ceramic mortar and pestle. In other families, assisting ensues from statements like, “Here, mash these potatoes,” or “Help fill in the pie crust,” but in mine it’s, “Henry, use this dollhouse accessory to grind salt that you can’t use anyway, unless you want an elevated sodium count.”
So this year I’m going to see my extended family in New York. I’m excited because it fulfills my lifelong dream of having a giant inflatable Dora the Explorer impede my freedom of movement. But at the dinner, when I look across what is sure to be a spread of delectable Americana, I know I’ll feel a special pang of guilt because I’m missing out on my real family tradition. I’ll still pine for that bitter cranberry sauce, the specially stuffed turkey, and that stupid mortar and pestle.
