Thankful for the food, memories

While preparing for Thanksgiving this week, I cannot help but reminisce about this special holiday when I was a child which meant a trip to my grandparents in Toccoa.

We would arrive at their house the Wednesday afternoon before Turkey Day. Back then we went to school the first two days of the week of Thanksgiving. I did not have the entire week off until I was in college.

Thanksgiving morning was busy for my grandmother who would have grits, eggs and biscuits ready for us to eat. There was no time to waste as my grandmother wanted just about everyone out of the kitchen as she began to work on Thanksgiving dinner.

The grandkids were told to stay out and as long as we were not being destructive, I do not believe the adults cared what we were doing. Usually, we were in front of the TV watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. We could tell though that grandma, my mother and her sisters were working their magic on the food as the aroma made its way through the dinning room to where we were.

Every once in a while we would try to sneak our way into the kitchen to get a drink of water and inquire about how much longer it was going to be because that young crew of grandchildren in the front room were getting restless. 

My mom or one of my aunts were at the door to keep us riff-raff from impeding grandma’s crusade for our Thanksgiving meal. At that point, she did not have time for us grandchildren coming in to bug her with questions.

Eventually papa would be summoned from his late morning nap sitting in the recliner as he was needed in the kitchen to slice the turkey. We always knew that this was a sign that lunch was not too far away. 

There was a time when my brother and I were the only grandchildren. We begged and asked for macaroni and cheese to be a side on the Thanksgiving table. My grandmother would say, “Heavens no! Y’all can have that any time during the year.” When we had some cousins join us years later, macaroni and cheese joined the list of sides on the table.

The first year that happened, I started to complain but stopped when I realized that I too could put some macaroni and cheese on my plate along with turkey, dressing, green bean casserole and sweet potatoes – and of course – my grandmother’s made from scratch catheads (if you know, you know). 

The table was always perfect and as we got older, we were allowed to move from the small table in the kitchen to the big table in the dining room. Papa always said the prayer and then we would start passing the food around and we dug in. After cleaning the plate – and maybe grabbing another cathead or two – grandma would bring out various homemade desserts which always included pecan pie.

Somehow, about four to five hours after leaving the table we were back in the kitchen warming up plates and going for round two. By the next day we were doing turkey sandwiches for lunch and one more round of leftovers that evening. 

One of my favorite things to do with leftover turkey now is to mix it with Ro-tel, black beans, mushrooms and some broth and make what we call turkey tortilla soup. Through some shredded cheese and sour cream and eat it with chips. 

I can recall my mom and her sisters making plans to go Black Friday shopping like they were generals planning to go into battle. I was never interested in going to stores before the sun rose. In fact, the first time I dared leave my house early to discover what Black Friday was all about was when I went to our local Belk to cover it for the paper. But there my mother and aunts were at O-dark thirty quietly walking out the door of my grandparent’s house to go out shopping somewhere in the metropolis of Toccoa.

Those days are gone, but I remember them every Thanksgiving. Now my wife and I are in charge of the bird, dressing, green bean casserole and sweet potato casserole. She does the cooking and I now slice the turkey. Some years we host and some years – like this one – we load it up in the car and transport this meal to my uncle’s house about 40 miles away.

No matter what though, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade – which will hold its 99th one this week – is on our TV and we will be watching one if not two football games that afternoon. But the most important thing is we will be spending this time with family, which is something I thank God for every year.