please don't screw with my holidays...

Well, we're entering the Holiday Season (Hallowe'en to New Year's, although you can't really tell - Hallowe'en stuff has been in the stores since like August, and I've seen Christmas stuff already. I'm not an anti-capitalist of any sort, but I kind of long for the days of my childhood, when merchants had a general agreement not to put Christmas merchandise out until after Thanksgiving. It made things more special somehow, and you were less apt to get holiday-fatigue).

But.

I am a home-dec and cooking magazine ho, so I get a bunch of them. And every year, there are the disturbing stories in the November issue: "No one really likes roast turkey" "Roast turkey is usually dry and tough" "Roast turkey makes you too sleepy" "It's time we shook up this holiday!"

Ugh. No. Please do not come to me with recipes for burritos or strange pan-seared game meats and call it Thanksgiving. Those recipes are fine for any other time, but Thanksgiving always has been, and I hope always shall remain for me, as Turkey Day.

I happen to LIKE roast turkey, thankyouverymuch. If you prepare it right - and if you get a GOOD turkey instead of an off brand - it's not dry. And as for the sleepiness - for Pete's sake, it's a HOLIDAY. If you can't fall asleep in front of the tv watching football after a big meal, we might as well not be America anymore.

I hate the whole "let's shake up this holiday" vibe. Look. We live in an insecure era. We are regularly told that each day may be our last - whether it's North Korea, or terrorists under the bed, or illegal immigrants, or carcinogens, or global warming, or earthquakes, or whatever. The familiar is comforting, and I would guess it's comforting to a large segment of the population. Why mess with something that's good, that's served people well since...what...the Civil War? Wasn't that when Thanksgiving was made an official holiday?

I never understand why people need to take traditions and screw with them. I suppose it sells magazines or some damn thing.

(I will say I'm not virulently opposed to deep-fried turkey or smoked turkey, since I live in the South. Smoked turkey actually, when it's done well, combines all the good points of both turkey and ham, and can be quite succulent and wonderful. It wouldn't be my pick for Turkey Day but I'd not kick and scream if a family member offered to have that instead of the roast turkey. Personally, I think it would make a fine Christmas dinner, or an Easter dinner. [Ironic, isn't it, that to celebrate the resurrection of Our Lord, we often eat ham - something He would never have eaten in His life]. And deep-fried turkey: as white-trash Bubba as it sounds, it's actually good. It's dangerous as hell to prepare, though, so I doubt I'd be making it - it also takes gallons of oil and a special cooker - but I've had fried turkey and it is good.)

But. So many of the magazines seem to be into "kicking it up a notch" in the tired old phrase - either doing something unspeakable to the turkey (basting it with coca-cola, or making a stuffing solely out of asparagus, or sticking olives and lemons under its skin), or doing away with the bird altogether and having to show us how Up To Date and Sophisticated they are by preparing some thing - be it alligator or Kobe beef or some kind of stir-fry - that doubtless requires for its success an ingredient not to be found outside of major metropolitan centers. (And that is one of my big beefs with Gourmet magazine; they seem to believe we all live in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, or at least Aspen.)

And it just feels wrong to me. Thanksgiving for me is not just about giving thanks for all the good things we have - and I mean ALL the good things; one year friends snickered at me, when at a Thanksgiving get-together we all had to name something we were thankful for, and I said "indoor plumbing."

Stupid? Funny? Well - try living without it.

But Thanksgiving for me is also about remembering the good times of my past. The years my greater family assembled, back when grandparents were still alive and aunts and uncles and cousins were not scattered across the entire continental U.S. And about when I was a little kid, young enough to still believe in a literal Santa, and so Thanksgiving meant the start of the Big Season, heralded by the big man's appearence at the end of the Macy's parade...and every year we had turkey. And my mom's chestnut stuffing. And mashed potatoes. And sweet potatoes. And cranberries. And homemade dinner rolls. And pumpkin pie. And mince pie.

And - perhaps this is where I veer into Rain Man territory - but every year I would like everything to be as much the same as possible.

I still watch the Macy's parade - yes, the whole damn thing, even though in the past 10 years or so they've crapped it up with "scenes" from Broadway plays that are really just a blatant advertisement for New York tourism* - and they've reduced the shots of the balloons and the marching bands, which are really what I would guess 80% of the people watch the parade for.

(*I don't have anything against that - but do it at a different time. And usually it's cold during the parade and it hurts me to see the dancers out in their skimpy costumes doubtless freezing their yarbles off and having to perform at an ungodly hour of the morning for them. And even though I know all the singing is canned, I wonder if the singers don't perhaps risk their voices out there in the cold.)

And if "Miracle on 34th Street" is on, I watch it too - but only if it's the "classic" version. And I much prefer the non-colorized version. (It's actually one of the few films that still makes me tear up, even though I've seen it many times - that last scene in the house - the "discovery," if you will - you will know which one I mean if you've seen it - it gets me right here)

And then dinner, which for me still means turkey.

And yeah - if you're a vegetarian, I feel for you. And if you were coming to my house for Thanksgiving, I'd make an effort to prepare a protienaceous but vegetarian main dish/side dish to go along with the turkey. But please don't demand I give up my turkey in favor of your preferences.

And also please don't suggest TurDuckEn - which makes me laugh but leaves me cold gastronomically. I don't care that it's a chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey, it has no place on the Thanksgiving table. Likewise for any game other than possibly a WILD turkey.

I also have always passed the day itself with family. I hope that doesn't change any time soon, even though it means long travel for either me or for family. (Last year it nearly changed. My parents were planning on coming down to see me for the holiday, and then at the last minute my dad had a medical emergency that required he not travel. I made emergency plans - and paid through the nose for my ticket - but I got to my parents' house. Mainly because, I was simply not emotionally prepared to spend Thanksgiving alone. I understand that unless I become more sociable, there will come a time in the future I will have to face it, but I am not ready to yet. When that day comes, I don't know. I may just find a soup kitchen to work at so I will be busy rather than sitting at home feeling sorry for myself).

But, as I said - we live in unstable times. Even my family situation, with aging parents and other relatives, can be at times uncertain. So please let me have the nice familiar certainty of turkey-mashed potatoes-cranberry sauce. Save the weird inventive dishes for New Year's Eve, when I generally stay home anyway.