TheBanyanTree: Post Thanksgiving

[Jena Norton]

Well, I think Elise is a closet Colver.
Glad it went well, all things considered. Jena Norton
 
      From: Theta Brentnall <tybrent at gmail.com>
 To: A comfortable place to meet other people and exchange your own *original* writings. <thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com> 
 Sent: Saturday, November 28, 2015 8:59 AM
 Subject: Re: TheBanyanTree: Post Thanksgiving
   
I will say conclusively that you won the awesome Thanksgiving contest. Ours was a little iffy from the beginning. Gerry's niece, Elise, has a new (to her) house so she wanted to host the family Thanksgiving dinner. We were to arrive at 3, which kind of made us think dinner at 4-ish so we skimped on lunch. We got there early because we had anticipated horrible traffic which didn't materialize. (Oh, yes, "we" consisted of Gerry and me, our oldest, Darling Maggie, her Darling Shane and the two grandest of grandchildren, Indiana and Micah.  Just so you know the players.) Elise's boyfriend was there, but no Elise. Two raw turkeys on the counter. A big pan of raw potatoes waiting for heat. A green bean casserole sitting on the table which Mike said had been dropped off in the morning and apparently had been sitting there unrefrigerated for some hours. I whispered to Indy and Micah, "Don't eat any of that at dinner."  They whispered back, "No worries. Wouldn't touch it!"

We asked where Elise was when she didn't appear and Mike said she was getting ready. After 20 minutes or so, Maggie and I dug out some carrots and bell peppers to cut up and Mike found some guacamole and humus dips, so we put out some snackings. A few more guests showed up. No Elise. Turkeys still raw. Maggie put the potatoes on to boil. 

About a quarter to 4, Shane decided to put one of the turkeys on the grill and some of the other guests started getting the oil hot to fry the other turkey. 

Four o'clock, Elise appears.  She is beautifully dressed and coiffed, but expressed dismay that the guests were doing the cooking.  

Four-thirty, Gerry's brother and his wife showed up with the pies. There were 20 people there. They brought 10 pies. I thought there were only 8 but 2 were duplicates so they didn't get put out. 

Five-thirty. The turkeys were done. Two of the other guests had mashed the potatoes and we started putting things on the serving table when Elise blew in and said no, no, no, it's too early. 

Six o'clock.  Maggie encourages Elise to get the the food on the table so we could eat. Her actual words were, "Oh my God!  Put the food out!  Do you WANT to watch my kids have melt-down?"  She could have added me to the list - I was pretty well on my way to melt-down myself. 

The new house is seriously tiny, so Elise had rented a tent with patio heaters for the dinner. The day never reached 50 degrees, so we were all wearing everything we had brought and we're still cold, but the heaters worked pretty well. And finally we ate. The food was good. Conversation was pleasant. And then one of the other guests leaned back in his chair and complemented Elise on getting the tent because since we were outside he could enjoy his post-dinner cigar. And proceeded to light up. I wonder if he was at all puzzled by the fact that almost everyone else leapt out of their chairs and fled back inside. 

We snarffed down pie, washed the dishes, said our good-byes and headed home with the heater turned all the way up and when we got home we all squeezed together in front of the fire until we were toasted all the way through. 

I hope everyone else had a wonderful day and now we can look forward to Christmas. 

Theta


Sent from my iPad