Thanksgiving. Here it comes. Can you feel it? Are you making your lists yet? Starting to think about what size turkey to order? How to set the table? Planning ahead and getting organized so that you, too, can savor sweet family time? That is certainly one of the challenges I have always faced during the holidays. How to be the producer, the artistic director, the chief cook and bottle-washer behind the traditions, meals and moments that create family memories... and also be a participant in the magic. Appear in a few of the photos. Enjoy the holidays rather than feeling like the hired help, slumped in a corner, passed out as everyone else raises a glass to toast the occasion.
When we lived in our house on Queen Anne I thought I knew how to make it work. After 20 years, I was pretty sure I had it down. I started early, spending the couple of weeks leading up to that last Thursday in November planning, inviting, shopping, ironing and cleaning. The few nights before, after full days at work, I would cook our traditional family recipes late into the night: homemade cranberry sauce, extra stuffing, my mother's rutabagas and finally, the night before, the pies.
Thanksgiving morning belonged to my husband. Dan would wake early, make the stuffing for the huge bird we always ordered and get it into the oven so it could begin its slow journey to the table. Our daughters joined him in the kitchen to watch and to play "Turkey Psychology" which involved Dan standing the turkey up on the counter where it gestured and confided its fears about its impending fate. The girls counseled wisely and compassionately, amidst hysterical laughter, that everything would turn out just as it should. They did this every year. At least that's what they told me. Thanksgiving morning was my turn to sleep late. I would wake to the smell of turkey just starting to brown, smile, roll over, and go back to sleep until it was seared to perfection.
As perfect as this may sound, I was still exhausted by Thanksgiving morning. Despite the best planning, I invariably had at least one freak-out moment where the pressure cooker that was my brain exploded causing me to scream at everyone to help or clean or get off their butts. How dare they relax and enjoy each other's company when I was slaving away to create a situation where they could... um... relax and enjoy each other's company? No matter how big or small the guest list, I always felt responsible for something that, had I looked a little more closely, already existed.
When we moved onto our 42' sailboat in Ballard I was at a loss. How would I keep the traditions alive and maintain all that we had worked to create? Again I was forgetting that it was not up to me. We had already done that: made the memories, forged the bonds, nurtured feelings of love and family. Everything else was peripheral. But I couldn't see past the fact that our tiny oven on the boat can't hold a turkey, even a small one. And we can't fit more than five around the table. We can make pies, but one at a time. We can make cranberry sauce but it steams up the boat. And the rutabagas have to be made in mass quantities and then heated up later. I was a wreck!
(A quick aside on the rutabagas. These little gems, popular in Scandinavian and Celtic recipes, are heaven on earth. My mother makes them better than anyone I know, but I am getting closer every year. A yellow-colored turnip, they have a mildly bitter taste, which can be cut with a potato or two. After steaming, mashing smooth and seasoning with garlic salt, pepper and butter, sometimes a dash of curry, well, I could die just thinking about them. They are always the first leftover we run out of no matter how I double or triple the recipe. Fabulous. Okay. End of aside.)
For months before our first Thanksgiving on the boat, I fretted and obsessed. After considering many (expensive) scenarios, we borrowed a friend's cabin on Anderson Island and dragged our groceries out there with us. While on the ferry line, I opened the car door to let the dog out; the turkey fell out and started rolling down the hill. Dan swore as I ran after it, catching it several cars down the line, to the delight, laughter and cheers of everyone in line! I returned to the car triumphant, turkey held high like a trophy. OK - this is fun, I thought. It's different but it's good. However, when we arrived at the house my heart sank. In spite of a stunning view of the water and Mt. Rainier, I just couldn't adjust. Not my house, not my stuff, nothing familiar. On top of that, I was mad at myself for what I knew was self-imposed moping and misguided thinking. I missed my daughter who was studying in France. My sister wanted to show her new Brazilian husband what Thanksgiving was about. I was trying, but I kept tripping over myself trying not to run the show and not to complain. C'mon, Irene - positive attitude! It's not the place, it's not even the food, it's the gathering, the people, the attitude of gratitude.
Thanksgiving morning, very early, Dan woke me up. "Hey I - you should see the sunrise," he said softly. Once, on a boat trip when Dan woke me to see the stars, I just rolled over - I was soooo comfortable and didn't want to wake up. The next day he gently mentioned that it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen and I have regretted my refusal to get out of my warm bed ever since. So on this Thanksgiving morning, I knew better than to make THAT mistake again. What I saw filling the large picture window in the living room took my breath away. The entire sky was alight with brilliant pinks and oranges and reds. It changed every minute or so, as sunrises do. We wrapped ourselves in blankets, moved a couple of chairs up close to the window and watched in silence. Moments before the sun made its appearance, the top rim of the mountains seemed on fire, as though someone had poured gasoline in a thin line along the ridges and lit it with a match. And then - pop! - there it was. The sun appeared over a crag and the day began.
I felt such profound gratitude in that moment and realized that I had at last found the Thanksgiving I had been seeking. Letting go of control makes it easier to relax, be with my family and truly enjoy the time. We all work together to make it happen. And, after all, that's really what the holiday is about, isn't it? And wherever, however we do it - as long as we do it with love - and rutabagas - we'll be okay.
Irene Hopkins was a 20 year resident of Queen Anne. She now lives with her husband and one of two daughters on a sailboat at Shilshole Bay Marina in Ballard. She works at UW Medical Center and in her spare time writes essays on family life and parenthood and women's experiences. And she can cook a mean batch of rutabagas.
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