Ginko biloba - Temperate House Kew Gardens November 2005
Today we will celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends. The goose and turkey are thawed, the flowers are ready to be picked up, the silver polished and placemats are ironed. The house is clean and ready for guests.
You may ask, why make people suffer through more than one meal of turkey, pumpkin pie, sweet potato gratin and too much pinot noir in one week? Because it is a tradition that has grown out of a time in our lives where we were expected home for Thanksgiving by our nuclear familes on Thanksgiving. It offered us a chance to sit at a table with all our friends and give thanks for all that we have - roofs that don't leak, jobs, educations, a bit of cash in the bank, health and friendship, without the emotional baggage that follows many of us home to our nuclear familes. It is a safe zone, with lots of interesting conversations, time to catch up and love and warmth that is genuine. The table size has ebbed and flowed over the year and some of the dearest people to us have moved too far away to join us, but they are there in spirit.
This is the 15th year of the Saturday before Thanksgiving thanksgiving and we will feast on goose, turkey, sweet potato gratin, hubbard squash, apple sauce, brussel sprouts, cranberry sauces (two kinds), vegetable casserole, freshly baked bread, freshly smoked salmon, gravy, mashed potatoes and good wine. The only traditional dessert will be pumpkin pie. I have to see pie at the table.
Not everything will make it to the table, invariably one stufing will end up crisped in the oven. We will all sit down together at one very long table, all 18 of us and be very thankful for all that we have survived this year.
That is something to be thankful for.
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