Breathes there a child who hasn't had to live through holiday dinners with the extended family? Waiting for dinner while the grown ups socialized, that one relative nobody really wants to invite but, hey, what are you going to do, picking at your dinner while the grown ups ate and socialized, wilting with boredome while the grownups yakked away after dinner, tried to find something to do for the rest of the night but there wasn't much so you got in trouble in one way or another and mother sighed on the way home, "Next time we're leaving you home!" ("Good").
Oh, was that just me?
My earliest memories are of my aunt and uncle's house. It was a beautiful old carriage house, soft lighting, dark wood. I was the baby so everybody was nice to me. Aunt and Uncle were friendly. Granny and PopPop seemed old to me but couldn't have been but 65-70. My parents were laid back and understood that a kid was a kid. For some unaccountable reason, Aunt gave me a pop gun. Okay, she never had children so I guess Auntie took a wild guess and thought an inquisitive little chipmunk like me would enjoy a pop gun. I was enjoying it and imagine that within five minutes of having it everyone was sorry the thing had come into the house. Hey, I thought, my PopPop likes good fun! I'll pretend to shoot him and he'll laugh. He was, by this time, a little weak with ill health, not always catching on quickly. Granny protected and cared for him stringently. I snuck up behind him, put the gun to his ear and let fly. The cork flew out, hit him above the ear, making a loud POP. He screamed, not knowing what to think, I remember him wobbling, people came rushing. I stepped back to observe the action. "Gee, what's with him?" Aunt grabbed the gun away, Granny helped her husband into a quiet room to recover, my mother took me by the hand to walk around outside while she explained my poor choice. And the memory embedded itself in my brain for the rest of my life.
I remember looong dinners at Granny and PopPop's house in Philadelphia. I only ate bread and turkey, not all that other stuff. Mashed turnips? No thank you, only I wasn't that polite. Then Granny would give me the lecture about how when she was a girl all they had to eat was dirt and they liked it... Then turning upside down on my chair from boredom, trying not to break the fragile china with the heavy silverware.
And this is what I've got to ask mother when I get to heaven - why on earth didn't you bring toys or something for me? I mean, you knew what I was like. A doll for goodness sakes?
Christmas dinners, while presents were piled under the tree and you had to wait through drinks and appetizers, sit through a boring dinner, then sit through after dinner talk which was dumb stuff, finally get released to get to the reason why you came, other than mother making you. Same thing for my girls at Nana's house - wait, wait, wait, blah blah blah. (I brought toys for them however).
Christmas and Easter dinners here in this house when my girls were young? It was my parents house then and it was wonderful. Dad had a way of making everything magic, sometimes literally. He was a magician among other things. There would be art materials and toys bought just for that occasion, and a Swedish angel candle - you know them, you light the four candles, the angels at the top go around from the heat and ring little bells? Highlight of dinner at Granny's - playing with fire. A dinner served that was child friendly. No mashed turnips.
It's Thanksgiving in a few days and Dave and I are planning our meal. It will be just the four of us as usual. The other two families live hours away. We've asked Brianna to help plan the food so we can be sure she'll eat it. Em will make her famous squash soup. Brianna has no way of understanding how important these feast days are, even though its just us, same old kitchen, same old food.
Holiday meals are when memories are shared, we get to listen to old stories, of grandma and grandpa's childhoods, how mommy was when she was young, you see family dynamics with the popular relatives and the ones you had to reluctantly invite (thank God we don't have one of those. We like all our relatives). We see how the old folks are treated, respected or not. You learn table manners, discretion, how to behave in someone else's home. You see china and stem ware, linen tablecloths and cloth napkins.
Who knew so much went in to holidays at Grandma's?
No comments:
Post a Comment