TheBanyanTree: Black Friday

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Where did this weather come from?  We’re due to be in the 50s again today
with a bit of hazy sun.  Gosh, I remember Thanksgivings and Thanksgiving
weekends with lots of snow and bone chilling weather.  Winter is
disappearing before our very eyes.

The best thing about this weather is that it will be very easy to put up the
Christmas lights this year.  Because this is our new home, I don’t have a
light decorating plan in place, so everything I do today will be trial and
error.  I won’t have as much as space to decorate, but I’m not sure how
everything will work.  I bought some extension cords and things, so I hope I
have enough.  Everything I do will be low to the ground.  I’ve given up
climbing up and down ladders to get that full house effect.

We almost had a meltdown yesterday.  The trick of Thanksgiving dinner is to
get 80,000 dishes of hot food on the table at the same time as well as a
carved turkey.  I was making good progress with the food, but I had a break
down with the gravy.  I’m not a good gravy maker – it’s definitely hit and
miss with me.  Some years I made great gravy and other years I resort to a
gravy packet.  My ex-husband made the best gravy ever and every Thanksgiving
(and Christmas, too), I wish he would appear in my kitchen just to whip up
the gravy and then quietly disappear again.  Ray can do a lot of cool
things, but gravy isn’t on his list.

I know good gravy is a delicate mix between fat and flour.  I was not
getting it with the mixture, and I started whining.  Asher and Susan came
into help, but all they did was throw all the fat back into the pan, and I
swear Asher put a whole salt shaker’s worth of salt into the congealing mix.
After about 15 minutes of trying to do CPR on something that was clearly
dead, including brain dead, Ray and I found a packet of biscuit gravy mix in
the cupboard and made that.  Asher went to the store to see if he could find
a bottle of gravy, but had no luck.

Meanwhile, the kids were edgy.  The parade of hot dishes to the table was
interrupted.  Everyone was hungry.  We approached meltdown mode where people
tend to say things they would regret.  But somehow we sucked it up.  We
calmed down.  Everything got to the table.  And because I’m a good cook,
except for gravy, we had a great Thanksgiving meal.

The worst part for me is the clean-up.  Everyone helps, but I’m ultimately
the one who knows where everything goes.  I sorted the food into the food we
keep and the food we send home in a care package.  The dishes were rinsed
and waited for the their turn in the dishwasher.  The big meal was over and
we made it through without any decent gravy.  Will wonders never cease?

We are thankful we have each other and we didn’t get too angry over
something that wasn’t that important.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be
careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.
~E.P. Powell