So caught up in Mary's decluttering fervor with Thanksgiving on the horizon, I may -- I say "may," for it's not actually been proved that I did -- have thrown out Ina Garten's "Store-Bought Thanksgiving" section that came with The Times a week ago.
It is, I suppose, possible. Subconsciously, as has long been the case with Christmas, I may want Thanksgiving to just go away. Well, not the bonhomie and the coming together and all of that, but the angst of Thanksgiving, if you know what I mean, all the stuff that leads up to it. It's a wonder I haven't cast myself into the dump along with everything else deemed tangential or unsightly. (As for calming the nerves on the actual day itself, I know pitchers of margaritas can do the trick.)
On Thanksgiving, as everyone's saying what they're thankful for, I'm thinking I'll say, "I'm thankful that we're never having Thanksgiving at our house again."
I had, while it was still summer, I think, checked in with the 1770 House to see if I couldn't reserve a table for two in the pub room for Thanksgiving, but was told that I was a bit premature. Then we learned that this would be the last Thanksgiving here for Mary's brother and his wife, who are moving to Florida at the beginning of December. That decided it. Only half the family is coming, which is to say about 15 people and a dog. "Next year in Vero Beach," I'll say, as I raise my glass.
I shouldn't be too curmudgeonly, although a local run on cremini mushrooms that were to go in the "mushroom and gruyere bread pudding" I'm making, had me out of sorts, but that's a mere truffle. Thanksgiving is one of the few times during the year that more than two people and a dog, and various crickets and spiders, are in our house, so I should be thankful for the chance to socialize, and, for once, to listen. Mary's usually the one who asks how people are, not me. I should follow her lead in that.
In the end, it's the silence that gets you when it's all over, when the tumult and shouting at the now forlorn dining room table's done, and when those who made everything fun have left, and when you surprise yourself by saying, "Come back, come back, let's do it again."