Yikes
If we have to believe popular culture, Thanksgiving is about one thing only: the food. Colorful flyers advertising everything from ready-made birds to one-step-stuffing (Because we know you are busy!) have been cluttering the mailbox for weeks. That’s a problem, because most of us can live without greasy turkey, clumpy stuffing, and pumpkin pie, and if we have to eat one more piece of fudge we might be a little sick in the cornucopia centerpiece. And besides, who are these people who design those ads, and how do they know we are busy? Maybe we’re not busy at all; maybe we just really hate schlepping all that junk home and cooking it because we know how many hours we need to log on the treadmill to lose all the belly fat. Do you know how many calories there are in that cheesecake? Do you? And can someone explain to me how it is possible to express gratitude by eating yourself into a coma?
Having come to this country as an adult, I struggle to fully understand the meaning of Thanksgiving. Passing anything worthwhile on to my children is therefore a monumental challenge. “Is Thanksgiving a Jewish Holiday?” My seven-year-old daughter wants to know. She asks, because she is currently on holiday-overload; having just observed Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth and Simchat Torah, the prospect of yet another special day with many demands and no school terrifies her. Over the past month, she hasn’t had a full five-day school week once, and she’s sick of it. The fact that she was out of school during Halloween due to a totally unrelated teacher’s conference didn’t help. In other words, she’s feeling decidedly ungrateful this time of year and not at all in the mood for giving thanks. I’m inclined to agree with her, especially since her discontent causes massive fluctuations in her behavior. She does admit that she likes visiting her grandparents, so there’s that, but we have to find some real meaning in the holiday itself. Why else should we pay attention to it?
I ask my husband what he thinks, and the answer is as immediate as it is unsatisfying. “Pie”, he says, and I roll my eyes. “That’s not what I mean”, I tell him, and he tries again: “Lots of pie?” Sensing I will not find any enlightenment here, I ask some of my friends. Dan, who was born and raised in the Midwest, goes into a long explanation about Pilgrims, Native Americans, and strange agricultural practices that involve burying dead fish to make things grow. It’s fascinating, but whom are we thanking, and what exactly are we thankful for? “That’s a good point”, another friend deadpans, “perhaps we’re celebrating the one time the settlers were nice to the American Indians.” This leaves me wondering, what do Puritans have to do with me? Can’t I just ignore this holiday, like I do with Memorial Day, Labor Day, and all the other American holidays I didn’t grow up with? It would certainly help my waistline, not to speak of the time it would save. Oh, but wait; I sound like a stereotypical cranky party-pooping foreigner, and we can’t have that. Maybe this food-angle isn’t so bad after all; at the very least it’s a place to start. We make plans, adapt our schedules, and promise my in-laws we’ll be there. Since preserving complicated dishes during a three-hour car ride is not an option, I offer to make dessert.
The next few weeks are marked by frantic recipe searches and important decisions about ingredients. My four-year-old son Mendel has the chance to use his Aleph-Bet cookie cutters, and although the end result looks nothing like Hebrew letters, he is pleased. My kitchen turns into a war-zone, my refrigerator looks like a foreign country of which I don’t speak the language, but the kids are having a great time. And suddenly it strikes me: we are building memories. This is not about the food itself, but about the memory of food; people who look forward to a holiday only do so because they can look backward at holidays past. I may not have memories myself, but I can create new ones for my children and thereby make this holiday my own. I can do that by baking the perfect pumpkin pie, but more so by spending time with them, visiting family, and making sure they have a context for eating that pie. After all, a pie is just a pie, until you eat it with someone you love.
