A Thanksgiving template for the rest of the holiday season
Dear Family and Friends,
As you recall, the big concern at Thanksgiving last year was someone blowing up the holiday by talking politics. This year, the big concern is breathing.
We’re weighing our options and welcome your input. From a distance.
If we opt for a small indoor gathering, per our state guidelines, we must trim the number of you invited. After painful and lengthy deliberation (60 seconds), we have decided to issue invitations based on the food you bring.
You cheeseball, pecan pie and homemade crescent roll people are in. Perhaps we could see you overcooked broccoli and gummy stuffing people another time. Easter, maybe?
Naturally, if we do go with an indoor gathering, it will be BYOB, bring your own blanket. To improve ventilation, we will cut the furnace and open all the doors and windows. The first one to whine will be put on disinfectant wipe duty responsible for wiping down light switches, bathroom faucets and toilet handles as well as stray cellphones.
There will be no ambiance with flickering pumpkin spice votives as the smell of bleach will overpower everything this Thanksgiving. Perhaps even the rest of the year.
I’ll be simplifying a number of things, including the centerpiece. In lieu of pinecones, adorable acorns and white pumpkins on a bed of pine branches, I’m going with a large pump bottle of hand sanitizer with turkey feathers hot glued to the back. No, it’s not on Pinterest. But it should be.
Yes, you can play board games after the meal, but with modifications. Each player will isolate in a separate rom, take a turn, sanitize the game board and all related game pieces, then deliver them to the next player. Monopoly and Scrabble should wind up sometime mid-December.
Please don’t sulk if you are on the “not invited” list, as we have not ruled out the possibility of an outdoor gathering. Outdoors would mean less food but more people. Decisions, decisions.
We could do a fire pit Thanksgiving, 6 feet apart, roasting raw turkey and sweet potato kebabs on skewers over an open flame and finish it off with s’mores. It might not be good, but it would be memorable.
If it happens to snow while we’re all outside, so much the better. We all mask, hold our breath, huddle together for two seconds, take a quick group selfie and have this year’s Christmas card. Winner, winner! Turkey dinner!
Yet a third possibility is a progressive dinner, and I don’t mean dinner at Bernie’s. Why not go from house to house and leave courses on the front step?
Appetizers at the first stop, main course at the next, sides in two different counties and dessert at the last stop. It lacks the togetherness component, but when we’re finished going doorto-door, eating cold food in cold cars, we can all go home, join up for a massive Zoom call and watch one another nap.
Just throwing out ideas. Hope to hear from you soon.
Love, Mom.
P.S. Who’s excited about Christmas?