The Thanksgiving That Lasted All Weekend

More Thanksgiving Thoughts from a Very Particular Year.

The day was notable for how quiet it was. Even my son, who suffers near-zero sentimentality for such things, asked what happened to The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. He was used to hearing the racket. It made him think of Thanksgiving.

I told him my troubles with the NBC app on the Amazon FireStick. He shrugged and went back to his room. If anyone could have solved this issue in less than 30 seconds it would be my technologically savvy and mechanically apt son. He was happy just to smell the turkey. We only have turkey this once every year. My wife and I have talked of having one at Christmas. We’ll see.

I’ve since learned that what we often call traditions are really mere habits we haven’t thought to break. Those habits are easier to break than we might think, too.

Actual mantelpiece decoration at our house. I cringe a little knowing you can see the seam in the wood laminate on the mantel, but I’ve got so many other things to fix on this house before replacing this.

This year, entire attitudes have been taken to the psychic curb. I knew I was going to come out the other end of my prostate removal with a changed outlook on things, but when I serendipitously found a pristinely recorded and edited video of the Rockettes’ segment in the parade—this proved impossible last year—I felt more silly than victorious in watching it.

Thanksgiving lasted all weekend, and so did the food. Barely.

The Rockettes normally appear just before the first hour’s break after the (traditionally!) excruciatingly awful Broadway musical segment, which, in recent years, has been going out of its way to be more excruciatingly, even intolerably awful.

It was such a relief to see those dancing ladies, usually after spending the better part of that hour coming in and out of the room dropping off the Christmas decor boxes from the shed. Now, via the magic and wonder of Internet video, I could watch at my leisure. 

I wish I hadn’t. It was probably well that I had done so, if only for the closure, but I wish I hadn’t.

It felt like a cheat to begin with. I realized they were basically the reward for those tinfoil-on-tooth-fillings twee musicals, and what was left outside of this context?

Dinner was just the wife and me. We coped splendidly.

To describe what I noticed with the dancers in my face on my office desk as opposed to the TV in the armoire would be cruel. Suffice it to say that the point was driven home that this parade was a mindless habit to be joyfully shed of, not a lost tradition to be mourned.

Or maybe not “joyfully” shed of. More like, “you enjoyed this once, it’s no big deal to you now.” I’ve been contemplating a blogpost on People Whose Work I Used To Admire, Now I Can Barely Stand Them. I could have some fun with that. Maybe later. Let’s just move on, and enjoy the quiet.

Shhhhhh....

My wife and I ate dinner. I went outside for a while to look at the sky and entertain the ghosts of my Thanksgivings past. We took a walk around the block just before the sun went down. We both expressed our thankfulness for living in a (so far, so good) quiet little town. The Christmas decorations were up. They’d been up for a week, maybe two; I hadn’t really paid attention. Everything was as it should be, though. Not merely quiet, but serene.

We got out just in time for last light. Hardly anyone was out on the road.

This display outside of the real estate office was a nice blend of Thanksgiving and Christmas decor.

I didn’t expect my daughter to show up until 10 p.m. but she arrived just before nine. This was the first time she’d been to see us in the Valley since Christmas, and, as always, the house lit up with her presence. Having all of our nuclear family under one roof, if only for two nights, supercharged the holiday air, and Thanksgiving 2018 established its dominion beyond President Lincoln’s designated fourth Thursday in November.

The only blue note here is that my wife’s and daughter’s work schedules did not sync, and my wife could only spend so much time visiting after work before going to bed, as she had an early wake-up. Some visiting was better than no visiting, however, and my daughter and I were able to do something we used to do back in Colorado Springs, namely, go Christmas shopping together. This was a tradition going way back that had been disrupted by my wife and I moving to the San Luis Valley.

We had to laugh, as we had everything finished within 15 minutes, and were meeting my son for lunch in downtown Alamosa. Ironically, the credit for this belongs to the destruction of a longstanding U.S. cultural tradition—stores remaining closed on Thanksgiving Day until just before dawn the day after. In the past few years, in the face of sadly feeble social media protests, retailers have opened their doors for “doorbuster” discounts at 6 p.m. the evening before. Therefore, Walmart was downright sleepy around midday the day after Thanksgiving. 

My daughter and I agree the term “Black Friday” sounds like a massacre, hence my avoidance of the expression. Anyway, thanks to Thanksgiving no longer being held sacrosanct by American consumers, we at least get Thanksgiving Friday back.

We had to walk to make room for the pie. You know what kind we’re talkin’ about here.

Something felt eerily familiar as we settled into our table at the local brewhouse, and I realized it was just my son, daughter, and myself, just like old times when I was the stay-at-home parent and my wife deployed. Of course, they’re all grown now, and paying the old man’s tab. But that easy, comfortable feeling was there. It’s helped so much that, parental authority dynamic aside, we’ve always generally enjoyed each other’s company. Of course, the parental authority thing has been long out the window. I don’t miss it. I’m just so glad they made the decisions they made, and they actually enjoy visiting with their parents, as opposed to it being some hateful chore under guise of “tradition.”

Emily stayed another night, which carried the Thanksgiving vibe clear into Sunday, hence the title of this post. Here it is, almost Thanksgiving 2019, and I’m finally winding this thing up. Better late than never, am I right? It’s so late it’s contemporary all over again. Anyway, I’m thankful Thanksgiving 2018 worked out like it did.  The children grow up, and you put away the things you once enjoyed. But, for my part, family and love remained.

These shelves were empty by Monday evening.