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No Holiday Prep Here–And It’s Divine

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Any other year I would have purchased my turkey by now.  Would have fretted over it, the size, the brand, frozen or fresh?  Would have wondered if you had already beat me to the best turkeys, the most favored size.  Too small and you run out, too big and risk setting the oven of fire, which I did, three years ago.

The canned pumpkin would have been bought, also my favorite pecans, possibly the yams.  There would be a notation in my calendar indicating what date to buy bread so it can get properly stale.  One year I bought my bread too early, thinking, stale bread is stale bread.  No, my friends, it is not. 

On these errands I would be thinking of how I drove my grandmother around to gather all the staples for Thanksgiving.  The bread from the discount bread place.  Celery from Wetzel’s.  Maybe the turkey from there, too. 

This year, I will prepare pies, and only pies.  And even that isn’t a requirement, but a suggestion if I feel like it. 

For the first time in decades, decades, I tell you, I am not fixing a turkey, nor dressing, nor yams nor cranberries, nor nuthin’. Except maybe those pies. 

When my brother-in-law’s daughter floated the idea of hosting Thanksgiving at theirs, he laughed and said, well,  good luck getting Kathy and Greta to let loose of doing the dinner. He honestly thinks we enjoy it. And now I wonder if my Granny Opal loved all the preparation and work as much as I assumed she did. 

Kathy and I jumped, or would have if either of us were able, at the idea of showing up, eating, and going home.  That we had to drive to do it, a nice little hour and half jaunt through Indiana, well, that was even better.  An adventure, an “over the river and through the woods” sort of thing.  

It must be said, I pride myself on doing the Thanksgiving food, but I have grown weary of it.  Kathy, less enamored with cooking than I, prides herself on her house, big enough for us all and comfortable, well-appointed with centerpieces and decoration that have required thought and artistic expression. 

She can cook, but the aggravation of preparing the meal while trying to feed kids who mess up the kitchen and get in her way, well, it’s been a nice set up.  I cook, she cleans and decorates, and the kids, if they can be bothered, drag out to my car to help carry in the bird, the dressing and various pots and pans full of food.

But this year.  This year!  We have accepted Mandi and Chuck’s kind offer and we will turn up on the day to feast and feast and feast some more. Spend the night if we want.  Spend two.

Here is the other thing.  We will not even have Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving.  We will gather on Friday to accommodate a couple of conflicting schedules, and that is just fine, too. 

Never did my family do this.  There wasn’t a pressing need, really, but even if there might have been, my mother was not one to flex.  

We were lucky as a family that we all lived close enough to see each other often, so it didn’t seem a tragedy if a few were missing from the table. We would see them on Saturday. 

But nor did my mother guilt my married siblings when they spent a holiday with the in-laws.  She insisted they do, sometimes, if a set of parents were aging and and she felt like she would have years with her children they would not. It was a kind and thoughtful gesture in her matter-of-fact way. 

Although I worry sometimes we blow off too many family obligations–any kind of obligation–these days.  Attending the funeral, choosing skiing over the holiday with family.  Just not showing up, however that may look.  This new bunch of people we have about us — notorious for not showing up.  The ones aggrieved at going to the office three days a week–how cruel! Never mind an entire workweek. 

But this year, I see how this easing of tradition has suited me just fine.  Better than fine. I see how it reduces stress for my niece and her husband with the three little ones.  They can be with his family on Thursday, all relaxed and happy.  Then with us, in Indiana, also relaxed and happy. 

How surprisingly easy it has been to let some things go. 

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Breaking the Ice

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Consider the ice pick. So simple, so understated, possessing a design that has not changed since the 1800s. Basically a wooden handle with a metal collar holding a thin, rounded blade in place. Perfectly balanced, with its beveled handle a comfortable two and half inches long, fitting sweetly in the palm, fingers resting gently on the smooth sanded edge, a grip comfortable and secure.


Lightweight, just this short of flimsy, but no. In that first downward dagger motion, the motion with the hand held high and a moment’s hesitation before crashing into the ice, it becomes evident, immediately and with a certain pang of guilt, this energy, this attack is not necessary, requires no gritted teeth, no concentrated strength. We understand in that moment the ice pick is perfectly suited for its job.

It is substantial, yet requires no force, no finesse. It just performs. If it were mechanical, it would hum. And hum and hum and hum in comforting perpetuity.


We may be forgiven the momentary lapse of judgment when we first pick up the ice pick.


We have before us a big bag of commercially made ice, ten or fifteen pounds worth. We bring it home because we plan a party, and some of it will be go into a cooler and some of it will be used for drinks. And all of it clumped together in a mass of frustrating, aggravating finger-burning coldness, making a mess of the counter and the floor.


First we do the the floor whomp, banging it down with might, thinking this will loosen it up. It does, but only the last little bit of ice in the bottom of the bag, that ice which will never see the inside of a glass or an ice bucket. Next, the butter knife, preferred by women, a steak knife preferred by men. Forgive the incorrectness of this, but it bears a truth not easily denied. Both methods equally ineffective, although the sharper the knife the more dramatic the failure, with those little piercing shards of ice flying around and melting on contact with the counter.


In organized households perhaps someone takes the hammer to it, the little tack hammer in the drawer there, the one used for hanging pictures and not much else. In my household, it is the first heavy object at hand; the corkscrew, the manual can opener, one time a can of tomato paste.
But no. An ice pick, and only an ice pick will do.


And who has one of those lying about?


Not I.


Until last week, when I had just about had it. For months I have struggled with big bags of ice or going without ice altogether, the difficulty of a glass of iced tea enough to unhinge me. The reason, simple. I do not have an ice maker. Imagine it. I still can not. But a glitch in my kitchen design means I am lucky to have a no frills fridge at all and forget about one with a factory installed ice maker.


No worries, I thought. I have the old fridge in the garage, I can store bags of ice there, and make my own ice cubes, anyway, circa 1962. I gave myself much for credit for energy and motivation. I overestimated my ability to remember to buy ice, I underestimated the ease of making my own ice cubes. Gone are the industrial aluminum ice cube trays with the lever that ejected twelve ice cubes at a time.


We thought walking across the floor with those filled with water was delicate. Try it with the tiny ice cube trays all floppy and made of silicone. I went in search of an ice pick. I found one, and of course I found it at my neighborhood hardware store. And when I say I found one I mean, I told the guys at the counter what I needed and they walked me to the back of the store to get one. Sometimes they go and fetch me things but that afternoon I needed the exercise.


It was just like the one my grandmother might have purchased. Just like my grandmother had, in fact. Just like the one we probably threw away when cleaning out her house that last time. A simple tool, elegant and efficient in the way it bends to its one task with ease. Dangerous looking. Much maligned, a horror film cliché. And yet, my new beloved.