I grew up in Connecticut, with a brother three years older than I. My mom had no siblings, but my dad had a brother and sister, and we lived fairly close to them and to their parents’ farm in the country. There were five of us cousins, all close in age. For years we had Thanksgiving at the old farmhouse, often going for a walk in the woods or clambering into the wagon to be pulled around by grandpa’s old mare. In later years, we gathered at Aunt Wilma’s, stuffed ourselves at the Swedish smorgasbord, and watched Uncle Paul’s movies of all of us on the 33-millimeter projector in the basement. I’m sure there were “issues,” but my biggest one was being sure that none of the creepy, smelly pickled herring ended up on my plate.
The issues began with the next generation, when we cousins were all married with kids. The Thanksgiving venue rotated back and forth between my cousins’ homes, one in Fairfield, Connecticut and the other on the shore. My brother and his family would come to Harvard from Maine the day before; we’d head south on Thanksgiving morning, pick up my mother, and later spend the night at her condo. I’m sure the competition—which was for women only—had begun with the earlier generation, but only now was I “in” it and aware of its stakes.
The first contest was whose home was the most straight-out-of-House Beautiful magazine. Even though my house wasn’t there, it was still in the running—or actually out of the running. My mother had never liked my old house, with its assortment of mismatched furniture and the “clutter” of old baskets, books, pictures, et al. And I had to concede that even though I loved it, my house wouldn’t stand a chance against either of my cousins’ Connecticut homes. They were similar—both colonials, with wall-to-wall carpeting, drapes at the windows, and pictures that coordinated with the color scheme. And both of my cousins’ wives were good cooks and had all the matching dishes and silverware to make an impressive presentation. I was always aware of my mother’s disappointment that her entry in this race showed so poorly.
Cutest and best-dressed
The other category was whose children were the cutest and best dressed. I don’t know how much coaching my aunts did, but my mother was fierce. It was understood that my three kids and my brother’s two boys would have haircuts and new outfits for the annual Thanksgiving parade of appearances. Usually they did—though it was a huge hassle—but their outfits paled in comparison to those of the Connecticut cousins. My brother and I might get the boys into shirts, but never tucked and topped with a blazer. Let alone a bow tie. And my girls were just a tad off in “the complete ensemble” look flaunted by their Connecticut counterparts. I always felt guilty that my mother had lost again.
All this changed the year of the Thanksgiving Day snowstorm. My brother and his family had come down the night before and we planned to travel to Connecticut the next day. When we woke, snow was already falling and it was predicted to worsen through the day. A call to my cousin’s confirmed that the snow was piling up there too, and we decided not to venture out. It was our best Thanksgiving in years. We stayed in pjs and sweats the whole day, ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and devoured the Connecticut-bound pies my sister-in-law had made. We played a murder mystery game for which we assembled outrageous costumes, and we watched slides of the family on a carousel projector. After that, we found more and more excuses not to go south for the holiday, and it became easier as the kids got older, and even more so once they were married. We missed the relatives but not the competition.
When the grandchildren came along, we started going up to my brother’s every other year. Everyone wore what they wanted and relaxed in the old house, not exactly straight out of House Beautiful but so much more comfortable for its own personalized charm. And now, it was all about the turkey.
