Turkey, anyone?

Ahh the holiday of Thanksgiving. From watching the parade out of an apartment window near the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, to watching it at home on television, to not watching it at all.

From driving every year to Brooklyn to have a beautiful feast with my father’s family, to beautiful meals with my immediate family, to beautiful meals with Husband #1’s family, to covid Thanksgiving with just my in-laws, to having children who no longer celebrate Thanksgiving and now have their own children, thank God, who have school on Thanksgiving and the day after.

This year, we were invited to DIL #3’s family but chose to save the tolls for the day after when, hopefully, since this is being written a few days before, we will be spending another Shabbos on the Island of Long with Strudel and her family. For the record, we love DIL #3’s family, but, as you may recall, the Monsey in Husband #1 trumps all things…and that is just the way it is.

Husband #1 wanted me to write an entire column about Thanksgiving, but I pretty much have already summed it up in the paragraphs above. What was once a great American holiday is now just a regular Thursday in our home. But we are thankful for all that we have, and we will be celebrating a Sheva Brachot on Thanksgiving so we are really looking forward to that.

I offered for Husband #1 to be a guest columnist. He could write about how, since getting rid of DirecTV, he has been on the phone with Verizon at least three times because it hasn’t been working. With the fear of an “I told you so” from his loving wife, he sometimes chooses not to tell me about these phone calls, but I hear him talking to someone and I know he is not at the stage where he talks to himself. I, on the other hand, am already at that stage.

So we play the dance of denial, and maybe one day we will get through an entire week without any television-related complications. Hey, when there is no one home to help with homework, you have to find other activities to keep your mind sharp. Having deep discussions with our new friends from Verizon is just one of those activities. When Husband #1 invites the guy over for dinner, then I will know that he has gone too far.  I will keep you posted.

As for my personal feeling about Thanksgiving, I really miss the stuffing from grandma’s house. It was really that good.

And no one seems to know where the store was located. Like my grandma made it up and it really came from another store. Perhaps one with not as much as a hands-on mashgiach. But we will never know, and I will continue to dream about it until the day I go up to the big Thanksgiving feast in the sky. With my dad and my grandparents…or, the feast down below where I can only eat dinner if I finish a semester of algebra. See, we all have our different versions of what is awaiting us.

Interesting turn for a Thanksgiving column, don’t you think? The cuties who I babysit for told me about the projects they made for their Thanksgiving feast and that just felt nostalgic, because Strudel and her sister will also be coming home with projects, but they will most likely be Shabbos-related and not have any turkey-based ideology. And that is okay. In fact, as long as I get to spend the weekend with them, it is all okay. Turkey, not turkey, stuffing, not stuffing — who cares?  I just want my pastries to play with!!!

And isn’t that what Thanksgiving is really all about anyway? Being with the ones you love? And bringing the food? Because food is love? There I go again.

I have gotten to a point where I rationalize eating an entire pint of ice cream because it makes me feel closer to my dad. Does it? It actually does, but that doesn’t really help when the scale keeps going in the wrong direction. But I digress.

Happy Thanksgiving for all of those who celebrate. And Happy Thursday for all of those who do not.

Looking forward to seeing anyone I might know in West Hempstead and shout out to machatunim #1 for letting us stay in their home.

Banji Ganchrow of Teaneck cannot wait to show Strudel the cake I made. I really hope it looks like the one in the Tefillah book she had me read to her. Yes, she already is more religious than I am and that is okay.