Thanksgiving Thesis

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I've often stopped to think through why that is and I'm not sure I've come to a convincing conclusion. Certainly there's the commendable aspect of reflection on our blessings and the titular thoughts of thankfulness, though I fear even in my best attempts to keep a noble focus on the day, it really is easily more a thinly veiled day for indulgence and hedonism that self-sacrifice and gratitude. (I have an indomitable bent toward selfishness.) Of course each year as the day approaches we make the stouthearted attempts around the dinner table at enumerating our blessings and all the things we're thankful for. But there seems to be a subtle kind of legalism about that - at least when I do it. Am I doing it so I can check off my thankfulness box for the year?

Count your blessings instead of sheep,
or God will kill you while you sleep!

Or is there some wisdom or benefit to the discipline of going through the motions if, for whatever reason, I don't feel particularly more thankful at that moment than in general? I seem to have an uncanny ability of taking something lofty and noble and full of grace, and poisoning it with duties and obligations that I'm not sure really belong. Why do I have to justify my involvement by "doing something?" I'm also pretty sure I'm overthinking it.

But there's something about about the layout of this particular day, apart from it's intended semi-spiritual focus, that I appreciate. A Thursday holiday with a bonus Friday off makes the event that much more relaxing and enjoyable. Spending the time at home, going for a family hike, playing with the kids, cuddling with Stacy, and (admittedly) cooking and eating and staying up late with friends and family without the dread of an 8:00am clock-in looming over my head really is a wonderful thing. I guess in retrospect I am very grateful for these times with my family.

This year our Thanksgiving feast was held at Stacy's-aunt's-boyfriend's-sister's house. We were assigned a couple of dishes, so our cooking obligations where relatively light. I got up at some ridiculous hour (because I wanted to, not because I had to) and got started on the collard greens. My goal, as is my general culinary philosophy, is to take an essentially healthy, wholesome dish and add enough sin and wickedness to it to make it an immediate threat to your general health and well-being. In the case of the collards this meant adding more bacon that I shall admit in print. They were bubbling away merrily by 5:30, ready to simmer the morning away.

Soon there were rumblings in the hallway and L and N staggered out with their semi-drunk lists, rubbing their eyes and stretching like cats. I love having my early morning alone time, but I'm rarely disappointed when the thumping and bumping begins in the hall. For some reason I won't overanalyze (for fear it will go away), their own little mug of tea with Daddy in the morning makes the world a wonderful place.

After a quick breakfast I put the kids to work making our second assigned Thanksgiving concoction: sweet potato casserole. L and N took turns cracking the eggs, or shall I say crushing the eggs. (After each egg we'd spend five minutes fishing out minute flecks of shell.) They then each alternated carefully measured out flour and sugar and orange juice and butter and vanilla and nuts. (Yes, I do eventually put healthy sweet potatoes in, but revisit my comments on cooking philosophy above.) It only needed an hour or two to cook, so once all assembled, it was popped into the fridge for safe keeping until the appointed hour. By this time Stacy had thump-bumped out to the kitchen and we had a free morning before us: Thanksgiving Hike!!!

We've sort of thump-bumped into a Thanksgiving family tradition of taking a little local hike on Thanksgiving morning. (This year, since it was on a weekend, we expanded it to cover Halloween too.) Our jaunt today revisited our usual local hike near Del Cero park up on Palos Verdes hill. As we drove up and got the first couple of glimpses of the water and cliffs it was clear it was going to be a gorgeous day. Catalina Island, twenty-something miles off the coast, was ruggedly clear, and looking up northwest you could even see the Channel Islands off the Ventura coast lying low on the horizon.



Over the summer during one of the big wildfire spurts we had, one fire broke out on the hill. I had heard it was near Crenshaw Blvd., which is where we hiked, but we got to the parking lot to find that it had actually raged all along the brush and gullies of our hiking area. The fire road we generally hike down seemed to have served as a decent fire break because in most cases one side of the road was black and charred while the other side was intact. In some places it had clearly jumped the track and in others you could tell the flames had gone all the way up the cliffs to the edges of the neighborhoods perched on top of them. Evidently no houses had been lost, though I think I remember hearing some outstructures had burned.



This had no ill effect on our hike, however, and we got to enjoy the warm sun, the playful ocean breeze, the singing of the birds, and the whining of the children. (Our kids have some work to do in achieving Daddy's goals of becoming consummate outdoorsmen.)



We made our grueling initial hike of 200 yards (maybe more!) down the fire road and then took a much needed breather under a pepper tree. Revived and refreshed, we carried on further down the road. This particular fire road is carved into the rather steep PV hillside and tends to have decent drop-offs on the ocean-facing side. These steep edges are kiddie magnets and tend to drive their vertigo-prone Mommy into fits of panic and hysteria. They're really not too bad when you're right at the edge looking down - you can see the step slope into the ravine below, but it isn't really a deadman's drop. But standing back a few paces (where Mommy prefers to hide out), it does really look like the road drops off like the cliffs of insanity, exacerbating Mommy's already considerable sense of paranoia. After a half hour of hyperventilation and near-teary pleas for the children to back away from the really-not-too-threatening drop off, Stacy and I made an agreement: When we were traversing a canyon edge, Stacy would walk up front with the kids behind her and out off eye sight; she would promise not to look back until we were past the drop-offs. I would hang back and let the children play about as they saw fit, and if they ended up plunging to their deaths, Stacy could feel free to eviscerate me. I was very proud of her for the successful struggle she waged against everything her maternal instinct was telling her to do!

At one point on our decent we encountered a couple of horses heading back up. Strangely it seems N is the animal lover among our kids. He immediately ran to the edge of the trail to wave and talk to the horses while L sulked in the background, bitter at that point from perceived injustice she had endured during the previous hiking. (L has gotten to the age where sulky victimisations seem to be more and more prevalent. Joy.)

Fire before and after: Thanksgiving Day 2008 and 2009.

Right on schedule the frustration kicks in,
with its generally predictable consequences.

After the the slave-driven children made it back up to the top of the hill (oh! the dramas), we returned home to a pre-lunch lunch, and the final prep.

We were invited spend Thanksgiving with Aunt Joyce and Mr. Jay at Mr. Jay's family's home up near Monrovia. We were a little surprised at the invite, since the last time we were invited to an event at one of Jay's family's homes the kids were so squirrelly we had to leave with our tail between our legs. I was pretty apprehensive about how the day would go. (But evidently large Italian families don't hold vendettas for past broken wine glasses and torn up garden plants.) We loaded the car with kids and casseroles and headed north, picking up Joyce and Jay a little after 3:00. The party was large, crowded and noisy, which was an immediate relief - our additional mayhem would blend in better! It turned out to be essentially lawsuit free and we actually managed to have a very relaxed and enjoyable time. Jay's family is large and diverse and there were plenty of interesting people to talk to, and of course, some killer food to eat. There were a couple of other kids there, which thrilled L and N because it would tend to obscure their particular fingerprints at any required post-crime scene investigation. We all ended up having a really great time, and as far as I can tell, we left behind no significant structural damage.