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Published: December 1st 2005
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The true Thanksgiving
Anna battles with the turkey in the kitchen sink. The Thanksgiving long weekend certainly started as it meant to continue. After a rather stressed final day in the office going over details for our December event the following week (for which a midget was top priority), it was nice to go home and think of those four long days stretching out ahead of me. On my way home, however, I stopped to meet Anna at 14th Street. I thought I'd better help out, seeing she was attempting to get home, get changed and then run back out to meet her friend within the space of 20 minutes, whilst all the time carrying half the contents of an NYC deli, not to mention this big bastard of a turkey. She'd agreed to cook for a couple of Mountbattens in our apartment, catering for people as a homage to the US traditions. However a "couple of Mountbattens" soon turned into an even 14+ and so the small meal she'd envisaged now had to support a massive turkey, weighing in at a portly 18lbs...
We lugged it home, despite the cold, and even found space for it in the fridge. It seemed destined that things were all to go as smoothly as
Anna emerges victorious!
Anna 1 - Turkey 0, though it did put up quite a fight... the harmonious image of Thanksgiving promised. But as everybody knows, the 'picture perfect' image of Christmas never really comes into fruition and instead angry meddlesome relatives are left to fling giblets at each other across the exquisitely bedecked table.
This less-than-tranquil atmosphere began to emerge as I awoke on Thanksgiving morning to hear Anna and her friend Grace shrieking from the kitchen as she attempted to rinse and de-giblet said turkey. It was kind of like watching the Generation Game again, only with more squemishness and cries of "SO gross, actually SO gross!". Thanksgiving morning had arrived.
Thanksgiving is basically a holiday that celebrates pilgrims, indians and food. From what I've discovered, it's the kids who can tell you the most about the holiday - it's obviously being programmed into them at school age - and the older people get, the less romanticised it becomes. In the end, it's mostly an excuse for a day or two off work. Think of it as the unreligious Christmas. New York seems to think of it as the countdown to the "holiday season". It endows shops with a licence to start decking the malls with boughs of holly and whatnot and Macys is a certain ringleader in this sense. They sponsor the Thanksgiving parade, which is responsible for filling the streets of midtown New York with tiny screaming children and their bolshy parents, all elbowing their ways to the front of the crowds in order to see the colourful floats as they meander by.
I had originally intended to go and see the parade. Weather reports had been promising flurries of snow and I thought it would be pretty exciting to see a parade with massive balloons, battling against gale winds and freezing rain. Imagine my disappointment on Thanksgiving morning when I woke up, glanced out the window and saw not the faintest glimmer of white. Nor the faintest gust of wind. Very unimpressed I was. So I did the sensible thing of rationalising whether or not I really wanted to go, but that just seemed like too much effort. So I went back to bed instead and snuggled delightedly with my decision.
Rather than joining the gently controlled chaos of a Mountbatten Thanksgiving in 903, I had been invited to a proper family Thanksgiving courtesy of my boss. His mum appeared to have taken pity on us in our malnourished, un-festive states and had called us to her table, so we met up in Newport in the afternoon and made our way to the upper East side. The meal itself was phenomenal and while portions were already pretty gigantic, second servings were merrily making their ways back and forth across the table. The day was bizarre and fun, in fairly equal measure. I ended up sat next to my boss and his five year old daughter who were engrossed in a conversation about negotiating a deal. Interestingly enough it was her who seemed to have the upper hand in the whole debate, ensuring that not only did she not have to eat the rest of her peanut butter sandwich (a staple food group in the pilgrims' diets, I've been assured) but she also got the biggest cupcake the world has ever seen. I feel that I could learn a couple of things from this kid... We ended up leaving around 9pm, full to the brim and with two designer bags full of leftovers that could feed a small, but exquisitely fashioned army. With those, we waddled our way back to New Jersey and spent the rest of the evening in quiet contemplation of just how much we'd actually eaten.
Oh and apparently Anna's turkey was fantastic! The whole meal was a great success and nobody died / had giblets thrown at them over the table. So as you can see, it was one of the more peaceful, relaxing sort of holidays that don't happen too often. And best of all, there were three days of it still to go...
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Pip wadsworth
non-member comment
Turkey!
So, Caroline, Christmas is going to be a bit of a letdown then?! Isn't it time you did a parachute jump? They do say Manhattan looks great from 12,000feet!