Thanksgiving used to be so simple.
You got together, you watched football, you ate a massive turkey and you fell asleep. It was a big Norman Rockwell thing, and at least in the '50s and '60s, when many of us were kids, it was usually just your family and maybe a grandparent or three.
But the holiday has taken a real beating in the last couple of decades. We've read books, we've seen television shows and we've gone to movies showing us how grown-up baby boomers, some with kids and some without, have returned home loaded down with all their resentments.
This will be a strange holiday in a way. I haven't gone "home" for Thanksgiving in more than 20 years. When you live on the West Coast and your parents live on the East Coast, you tend to focus on Christmas when you can make it back at all.
This will be the first Thanksgiving since my dad died, and the first since my granddaughter was born. My mother and my younger brother are flying in for little Maddie's baptism this weekend, and they may or may not come over for dinner today. If they do, it'll be the first time in my memory that we have had four generations of our family in the same room.
That's sort of wonderful, but the dinner won't measure up. It'll be the first time I've made Thanksgiving dinner, and I didn't feel confident enough to tackle a turkey and stuffing. I'm doing a beef roast, along with numerous side dishes.
But it isn't without controversy. My wonderful son and his fiancee came over a little while ago, and Virgile let me know in no uncertain terms that he didn't find microwaveable mashed potatoes acceptable. Yes, he offered to make "real" mashed potatoes himself, but that didn't make me feel any better.
Oh, well. He's a great kid, and if this is the worst dysfunction our family has today, I suppose we almost qualify for a Norman Rockwell portrait.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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