Did I really hear a radio announcer report on Thursday that avoiding singing and shouting indoors is one of the precautions health experts are recommending for our upcoming pandemic Thanksgiving Day?
The experts working tirelessly to keep us all healthy obviously never experienced Turkey Day in my house where family drama is more plentiful than the seemingly-endless mashed potato supply.
You could have been on the other side of the state and heard my wife shout one Thanksgiving when one of her mild-mannered cousins gently informed her that our upstairs kitchen was rapidly filling with smoke. My shouts eclipsed hers as I flung open windows and batted dish cloths in a vain bid to clear the smoke.
The oven episode rivaled another Thanksgiving when the dog decided to pee on my brother’s leg. Morose in the wake of his divorce, the unexpected canine attention did little to lift his spirits but inspired a lusty and loud stream of profanity.
That was the same Thanksgiving that saw upwards of 30 people crowd around tables groaning with food in our living and dining rooms. While the cooking falls on my wife with assorted assistants, the dish load falls on me and, on that memorable day of thanks, I shouted numerous times to repel a stream of good-hearted guests seeking to infringe on my anal-retentive dish washing and organizing system.
Like every family, we count a constant shouter — a couple of them, in fact — among our traditional Thanksgiving crowd. They will go unnamed but one can be counted on to expound at length on various repairs that have gone unnoticed in our home and the other shows up late, family in tow, ready to wax long and loudly on the state of our nation or any other topic that comes to mind.
Somehow the volume level around our table during any holiday increases as the day, and then the night, wears on. The quietest people always show up first followed by the semi-noisy. The loudest and most opinionated arrive around the time the pumpkin and pecan pies make their appearance.
During a normal Thanksgiving, these late arrivals have just enough time to make their presence known before they rush off to the first of many Black Friday sales.
Normal is out the window this year and I’m sad to say I will miss the crowd and its attendant comedy, not to mention “Fried Dough Friday” where family gossip, calamities and good news are hashed out with a plentiful dose of butter and powdered sugar.
Before this year, the only Thanksgiving rule enforced in our home was “don’t feed the dog.” This year, the holiday is defined by a dozen rules, including guest list limits, masks, social distancing and no shouting or singing all recommended as pandemic precaution measures. The radio report I heard even recommended eating outdoors, if possible.
If we can’t see the people we love this year or shop until we drop, we can at least be thankful for the people we do see and we can pack a few meals and deliver them.
This is the Thanksgiving to be truly thankful and to look ahead to when we can crowd mask-less around a table again and shout and laugh while we toss dinner rolls at each other.
