Thanksgiving 2.0
Making it work . . .
A hard year. A Facebook post summed it up for me:
13: I’m the scariest number.
666: No, I am.
2020: Move over, b****es.
That was a month ago. We still have to get through Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Here’s my personal update:
April: I’m the cruelest month.
November: No, I am.
December: Santa’s flight has been cancelled.
In May, I feared June. But the stars aligned, and my son got married. The couple had insisted on a small wedding, with only immediate family in attendance. Their “planned elopement” – try explaining that concept to anyone! – included a ceremony on the grounds of a Duluth bed-and-breakfast, followed by a brief stay in the honeymoon suite. Lake Superior’s North Shore isn’t Norway, the destination they’d booked and paid for. But there’s always next year. Or the year after that. We hope.
Our aim is to follow the experts’ advice. Last week, those experts suggested seating “no more than ten persons, from no more than three households” for Thanksgiving dinner. Perfect, we thought; six people at our table. But under the governor’s newer, stricter guidelines, my husband and I will cook our usual dinner, divide it into Tupperware containers, and provide either contactless delivery or takeout from our front porch. We’re lucky to have that option. It breaks my heart to see cars queued up in food lines. All I can do is increase my contribution to organizations fighting hunger, as I continue to shop locally and order dinner from neighborhood restaurants. And support small businesses. Many are family- and minority-owned. Many still suffer not only from the ravages of the pandemic, but from the damage sustained following the murder of George Floyd.
It’s difficult to remember that this world-shattering event happened less than six months ago, three neighborhoods away from the one in which I so comfortably live. I’m uneasy when I remember the event that brought about his death. He was murdered by a police officer, called to the scene upon the suspicion of passing a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill. Twenty dollars is the price of a decent bottle of wine, to serve at Thanksgiving.
We’ll improvise. Bake Mom’s pumpkin pie. And celebrate Thanksgiving, version 2.0, in the year 2020. And pray that next year will be better.
