Every Thanksgiving dinner table is depicted with a big, juicy stuffed turkey with mashed potatoes and a warm hot pie, but that “traditional” Thanksgiving is not my traditional holiday scene.
I like Thanksgiving. A whole week off of school is amazing and much appreciated. It’s a time to anticipate Black Friday pricing–I know what I want–a wireless blue tooth speaker or a new phone. While I love Christmas with its colder-weather-wrapped-in-a-blanket-watching-Hallmark-movies feeling, we’re still in November.
My family does Thanksgiving differently, “with a little bit of spice” I like to say. We celebrate Thanksgiving with menudo, tamales, pozole and/or smoke some ham. We also add the small but tasty desserts my parents don’t want me to eat because I could get a “sugar rush”. We like to buy cheesecake or tres leches cake from a lady who sells them near our house for this special occasion. I think she does them better than the Cheesecake Factory; she makes them with love.
There are some things we have on our dinner table which are questionable. For example, my aunt’s salad, which might say, “Get skinny” not “Get fat,” which for me is the opposite of the Thanksgiving agenda.
Before we dig in to our holiday feast, we don’t eat breakfast or lunch until the food is ready. My mom says, “cuando este listo, coman” or “when it is ready, we eat.”
I have a lot of aunts, uncles and many cousins, which means there is no place inside the house that we can fit that many people, so we all head to one of my aunt’s backyard shed. Her shed is air conditioned, and she also has a lot of backyard space to let the little kids run around until the food is ready.
Before we even begin to invite all of our relatives, we make sure everything in that backyard has been cleaned well so that one picky aunt has nothing to say. After that is taken care of, we set the tables with chairs in the shed.
My aunt is a really creative person, so she also sets up a beautiful stand to take pictures in. I like to participate in the Thanksgiving rush by helping my mom and my aunts cut up the vegetables we are going to use. Then I help them clean up.
I have celebrated both exotic and traditional Thanksgivings, but I have to say that if I had to decide which to have for the rest of my life, I would not have an answer. There are some things in my family’s tradition, like homemade tamales, menudo and atole, that would not be easy for me to give up. I am also fond of the classic and really delicious pecan pies, stuffed turkey and mashed potatoes. There are so many other ways to enjoy Thanksgiving. I know there are many “secret” recipes grandma doesn’t want other people to know yet. One day, I will combine all the traditions I like about Thanksgiving into my own family traditions.
I see Thanksgiving as a way to elicit family togetherness, to laugh and to make memories. There is something about our way to celebrate, through my family’s recipes and traditions, that makes it so much more valuable than just what we have out on the dinner table. It is the togetherness, the process which makes it so special. No matter what we eat, we are very thankful for another beautiful day together.
