Just A Thought

Published 9:29 am Friday, February 22, 2008

When did Thanksgiving dinner at my house become a tradition?

My wife, Joan, and I may have just marked our 21st anniversary but we’re still working the kinks out of this dinner thing, hardly a tradition as far as we’re concerned.

Oh, sure, we borrow traditions from our pasts, the green-bean recipe, the fruit salad from one grandma and the other one watching over the mashed potatoes to make sure they are done just so. But these are just a familial compilation, a tradition greatest-hits, not something that has taken on such an air of permanence that it elicits responses such as: “Of course, dinner is here.”

Which is what I heard a couple of weeks ago when I inquired about the location of the Turkey Day feast. A wisp of worry had floated through the fog in my head that generally surrounds thoughts of such events. I hadn’t overheard any phone conversations with the aforementioned grandmas about Thanksgiving. Was dinner on at all?

Duh. Where’d you think it was going to be?

Now that the condensation has cleared a smidgen, I see now there have been signs that this was coming.

For the past several years worth of Thanksgiving dinners, also at my house, I’ve carved the bird. My father-in-law has been close at my elbow but I’ve wielded the electric knife (that he gave me for Christmas, hey!). No matter my performance with the kitchen-size chain saw, regardless of how sloppily the platter was piled, I got approving nods.

And just this past week, I found myself scouring the front walk with the powerwasher to make sure those grandmas don’t slip. I can’t explain what made me do it, in fact, I don’t

think I realized what I was doing until the job was half done.

Then, I spent a recent Sunday afternoon re-covering the dining room chairs. And that was after shopping for fabric with Joan and one daughter.

Well, truthfully, I cast my vote and then went next door to buy a new putter while they stood in line for the fabric. Still, I spent the rest of the daylight with a staple gun rather than the golf club in my hands.

So the empirical evidence is piling up. Maybe there’s a correlation between the ebb of the hairline and the flow of things such as traditions.

Jim Hills is publisher of The Enterprise Newspapers.