Apple, Pumpkin, Mince

Thanksgiving Day dawns clear and cold with the promise of snow. Death doesn't stop for a holiday so my daddy has already left for work by the time I wake up and my mother is in the kitchen, elbow deep into pie making - family tradition demands apple, pumpkin and mince – and my mother is hands down the best pastry baker in the family. My grandmother trusts no one else for the pies.

A bottle of cooking sherry, only partially camouflaged by the coffee pot, sits innocently on the kitchen counter but it tells me what kind of a day it's likely to be. It's just after seven in the morning and my mother is pleasantly buzzed. Remarkably, alcohol has never affected her baking skills and the pies turn out perfectly. It's more than I can say for our family holiday.

We're due at my grandmother's at noon with dinner served at two. The house smells of dinner rolls and evergreen and the table is immaculately set with her best china, her real silver, her delicate crystal glasses and a linen napkin at every place. We are fifteen this year - five in my family, my grandparents, Uncle Eddie and Aunt Helen and all six of the New York side of the family, including (to my grandmother's consternation) their tiny, sharp toothed, yappy chihuahua.

“We couldn't find a boarding place that wasn't full,” my cousin Elaine explains apologetically, “But he'll be no trouble, Alice. He's housebroken and very well behaved and doesn't shed a bit. And we brought his kennel. Just in case, naturally.”

“Naturally,” my grandmother agrees skeptically, “But if he gets underfoot.......”

“Oh, absolutely,” Elaine assures her, “We'll see to him.”

Nana doesn't look convinced - truth to tell, she looks downright skeptical - but she shrugs and lets it pass. My grandfather is less charitable, scowling at the small dog and wondering aloud if he kicks the flea bitten, little rat bastard, will he bounce. Cousin Elaine pales at this and hurriedly shuts the poor thing up in an upstairs bedroom where he eventually barks himself into exhaustion and silence.

Dinner is a tense affair with everyone save my daddy and the kids drinking too much. At one point, a quarrel breaks out between my mother and grandfather and my mother leaves the table in tears. No one gets up to follow or comfort her and no one dares chastise him. The meal ends in a bitter, stony silence and even the pies are forgotten. Nana sends one home with Uncle Eddie and Aunt Helen, one with Elaine, and one to the Armenian family next door. My grandfather falls into a drunken stupor in his reclining chair while my daddy goes back to work and everyone else lends a hand packaging leftovers and cleaning the kitchen.

At some point, it starts to snow - light flurries at first, just enough to be pretty - but when Nana checks the forecast, there's 4 to 6 inches predicted by morning. It's more than enough to panic the New York relatives into an early departure.

“Well,” my grandmother remarks more to herself than anyone else, “That's that. And we don't have to do it again until Christmas. Ain't that something to be grateful for.”

Indeed it was.