My niece and her boyfriend, who bought their first house this August at the ripe ages of 23, want to begin hosting Thanksgiving. Because she’s currently taking full-time classes while also teaching full-time, she wants to wait until next year, meaning this will be our last year of hosting Thanksgiving. I can’t wait to give it up.
Now, I honestly love hosting Thanksgiving and I’m super proud of what I’ve turned the holiday into being. It’s top-notch. First, everything is made from scratch and organic ingredients. When I can, I source local foods. Think: local fresh turkey; potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, celery and green beans grown from our garden; wild blackberries for pie; and homemade apple sauce from local apples. For as much as we can make it a true celebration of nature’s bounty, we make it happen. Then, there’s the menu itself. Roasted turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy are the mainstays of everyone’s menu, but we add in roasted turkey gumbo and rice, homemade cranberry sauce, four different types of pies with freshly whipped cream, and my mom’s not-so-famous (but entirely delicious) hand-made noodles in broth. Finally, there is the mini wine pairing. Each year, we choose a wine to pair with the gumbo and the turkey, creating a red or white option for dinner.
Yep, we lost our heads. Not only do we spend two days cooking, but I spend a few days cleaning, going top-to-bottom in this house making sure the house is completely cleaned and decorated for the holidays. In the old days, I did a sleepover with the kids the night before Thanksgiving where we watched holiday movies and had popcorn on a makeshift bed in the living room in front of the TV. That got nixed as I got older.
And now, I’m ready to turn over this holiday to my sweet niece and her boyfriend although I was a little worried my husband would be sad about us turning this over. He took it on with me when I moved in eight years ago and it became our special holiday. His reaction? “They can have it!” (Hint: it was said with joy.)
Candidly, Thanksgiving had become quite the production and while I am super proud that we made it a truly special sit-down dinner with all of the elegance a couple of yuppie homesteaders could muster, it was a LOT of work. It’s much more relaxing to think of going to someone else’s house for dinner. Darryl will still make gumbo and I’ll still make a few sides, but we will turn over the majority of work to my niece and her boyfriend. I worry that it means that I won’t have any reason to decorate my house or that the huge table I bought that could seat 12 may now go largely to waste, but that’s okay. It’s their time to shine.
And that gets me to the second reason why I’m happy to be turning over Thanksgiving to someone else: it’s time for someone else to make it their holiday. I am super proud that my niece aspires to do Thanksgiving. She recently told me a story where she and her boyfriend went to a fancy wedding and the silverware was laid out similarly to our Thanksgiving table. She assured her boyfriend, “Don’t worry. I know which utensil to use. This is like Thanksgiving at Aunt Gail’s.” I know that she wants to prove she can emulate some of the things I created for Thanksgiving: the white linen table cloth, the china and silverware on the table, the well-prepared food and the fancy sit-down meal that we generally only have once per year. I also want her to make it her own. The homemade cranberry sauce, bourbon chocolate pecan pie and the local turkey were my additions. My husband added the gumbo and rice. Together, we added the wine pairings. None of those are absolutely necessary and can go away. It’s time for her and Joe to make their own traditions and identify new side dishes, new options for seating or decorating and new ways of doing things. And just as I get a relief from days of work, I also get the satisfaction of seeing someone else honor the traditions I honored from my own mother as well as some of the new ones I created.
It is time for this passing of the torch and I’m super happy about it. I am looking forward to watching them shine at the biggest meal of the year for our family. And I am so honored that it was this holiday that she chose to want to emulate. It means that all of those years with ironing linen napkins, filling individual salt-and-pepper shakers, creating a new tablescape each year and doing tons of hours of food prep were worth it. She now has something of her grandmother’s and her aunt’s that she can make her own. She will carry on traditions that are deeply rooted in our family but she will be able to add new twists and turns and teach the generation that follows us all about a Speedy Family Thanksgiving. It truly warms my heart.
And I’ll be honest. There is also a huge part of me that is looking forward to going out for a drink on Wednesday before Thanksgiving – just like the old college days!
The Yuppie Homesteader 