JudithHeartsongs is having a contest. The prize is Art. Her Original art. I love art. I want it. lol. We have to share a Thanksgiving memory or story and here's mine.This is my Thanksgiving story.
Although I was there, I don't specifically remember it. But I heard this story every year, for literally my whole life. Each and every year at the Thanksgiving dinner table, I was reminded of the disaster. The arguing and laughter. The nerve of her! The mayhem that ensued that day.
Yes, this was the year Thanksgiving was ruined for everyone, especially my Mom. And she never forgot it. The story in itself became a tradition for my family to tell each year. Until that day, my mother was the most stubborn person in the family. Everybody agreed. And as I've mentioned before, she was an awful cook. Terrible, awful. But being twice as stubborn as she was at being a bad cook, she was intently determined to be THE one to cook Thanksgiving Dinner that year. We were Yankees, and Yankees had Thanksgiving Dinner. Not Thanksgiving Lunch. Not Thanksgiving Supper. Thanksgiving Dinner, 8pm. There was no arguing about the time, no matter how hungry anyone became.
Around the 'K' house, it was 8pm for dinner, end of discussion. But it was also a feast. A feast worth waiting for, every year. Golden roasted turkey stuffed with sausage dressing, sweet corn with melted butter, acorn squash sprinkled with cinnamon, mashed potatoes in dark rich mushroom gravy, fresh biscuits, and more. Ahh the smells. They filled up the little house with their unique aromas.
Every year, and for many years, the food never everever varied; the menu was a delicious tradition in itself. But well, sometimes traditions need to be broken...right? right? OK, maybe shaken up a bit then.
So there she was, a nice little fifties kinda Mom, busy in her cozy little kitchen, cooking, as Moms usually do on that day. In fact she had been up most of the night before cooking. She needed to be. She needed the extra time to fix whatever she ruined. Lol. Even she knew her cooking was not gourmet, but she was determined to cook, and most times the meals came out ok.
So this year, well, it was HER house they were gathered at and there was no way she was going to let her mother-in-law (gasp) cook in her kitchen. Oh, that and Mom was also very pregnant. Which might explain the insanity in our family ... hers and mine. And might have added tot he impaired judgment oh her part.
Sooo, on that particular Thanksgiving Day ...............
3 PM rolls around and she won't let my Grandmother into the kitchen nor will she come out for any length of time ....
4 PM rolls around and she won't let my Dad or my Grandmother into the kitchen .....
5 PM rolls around and she won't let my Dad or my Grandmother or anyone else into the kitchen and STILL won’t come out of the kitchen for any length of time. They're wanting to help, someone explains. Pfft. "No, they're not, they're wanting to nibble on food!" she huffs. So she brings out some hoer's de oeuvres... the fifties were so classy, non?.... and she disappears quickly back into the kitchen. Little did they know..
6PM rolls around and she started to set the table and when asked, she finally allowed my Grandmother help her do that. .........And that's when it happens. As she is walking back into the kitchen a contraction hits. Then another. Worst yet, my Grandmother sees it happen. And all hell breaks loose. Panic. What do they do? Then another contraction hits and “that’s it,” my father declares. And screeeech two days worth of cooking gets stopped cold. I mean turn off the stove, grab the kids, grab the pregnant woman, forget turkey!, find coats, get shoes, and hit the snowy road, cold. My mother is soon to become the second most stubborn woman in the family. And she is NOT a happy housewife. She is in labor and doesn't want to go to the hospital. Her reasoning is that she has spent two days cooking.
"TWO DAYS!" she yells as they are hustling her into a coat. "And it's THANKSGIVING," she screams to deaf ears, "for C&^%#! sake. And I will NOT miss %&*!*^! Thanksgiving dinner." Mom had a mouth of a sailor on her, she did. And I don't mean my dad’s, who was in the Navy, either. She pouted, she whined, she cussed. She tried to bargain with them to wait until after dinner. There was only an hour or so left to go til they could eat and she could make it, she cried. I mean not even for LABOR was that woman going to change the dinner time. Geesh! lol
They took her to the hospital anyway. It was the fifties! You didn't wait! I mean who waits?! She does. Seems she had gone into labor, ohhh about 8 hours earlier and she tried to make it 'stop or go away' so she could have her Thanksgiving dinner.
OMG! I repeat....Can you say STUBBORN?!! sigh. So she ended up missing dinner all together and a few days too, and everybody else ended up eating Thanksgiving dinner from the automat (think vending machines). They had no leftovers either, which just added insult to injury.Years later when she was telling the story and she came to that part of her wanting to stop the labor, I jumped in and said, "Yea, like THAT was gonna happen, Mom." And she shot back, "Well, why you just had to be born that day, I'll never know. You are just SO stubborn. I don't know WHERE you get it from."
It was such a ridiculously funny thing to say, and we all just cracked up. But the crown had been officially passed even though I had apparently earned it all those years before. LOL. "Gee, ummm, I dunno where I get it from either, Mom. Maybe cuz I'm a redhead and your daughter and now the #1 most stubborn woman in my family (evil grin). "
Hey, I come by it honestly. And I still wear that stubborn crown proudly, too.My Dad, liked to tell her, "It's because she smelled your cooking Bess, and she wanted to come out and get some." My father loved my mom enough to compliment her cooking, not to mention eat it for 50 years. Now that's love, folks. Real love.
But Hmmm...Maybe that's why I hate to cook on any day but Thanksgiving? Cuz it sometimes falls on my birthday and I just have to be wreaking havoc in the kitchen, like I did all those years ago.
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