For many of us, last year’s covid lockdowns interrupted our usual family holiday traditions and routines. Those images of smiling multi-generational family members gathered in the same room around a bountiful feasting table had to be reconstructed from memories of holidays gone by. If my memory serves me correctly, last year’s Thanksgiving Dinner for my husband and I involved a meal we had prepared of the smallest possible servings of traditional fare that we could cook, eaten in front of the television screen in our Pittsburgh home. As with last Christmas, we did share a short zoom session with family members who gathered with one another on the other side of the continent without us.
Hopefully this Thanksgiving will be an improvement for many families from last year, though it looks like folks who must travel to attend holiday gatherings are signing up for ordeals and disorder at airports and in airplanes, delays in travel connections, and extra expenses for car rentals and gasoline. Truth is, even in the best of times, holiday gatherings can be what the Chinese call “dangerous opportunities.” When members of the family or clan gather it may bring together people who disagree about a lot of things. After a few beers, or glasses of wine, the airing of grievances may disrupt the peaceful recitation of what we are grateful for from the past year.
Annual family gathering also bring into focus those people missing from the table. Someone special to everyone may have died since last year, someone may be missing due to illness, or some usual places may be left empty due to relationship estrangements that have occurred since the last gathering. And differences have not dissolved automatically since the last gathering.
Navigating covid is still providing added stress to the planning of family gatherings. Did I hear there’s increases in cases in your state or town? Who on the guest list is not vaccinated? And should we all take the test before arriving? Might holding the dinner on the sun porch be advisable so we can have enough space to socially distance safely? After all, we can’t wear masks when we eat. A lot to figure out!
There is another option that I remember choosing many years ago shortly after my divorce. That thanksgiving, my ex-husband took our three teen-age children to Florida to visit his mother. It seemed like a good idea since she was not able to travel but what would I do with myself for the holiday? Even though I’m someone who enjoys time alone, I knew that a holiday is not the best time to be alone. So, Rich and I traveled to Mexico which was a place I had never visited and a place that didn’t celebrate that holiday. It was a true escape.
This year we have decided to take a page from that strategy and spend Thanksgiving week doing something we had thought about for months but hadn’t gotten organized. We’ll be taking a motor trip south for some warmer weather with our dog Cody. Whatever happens, this year’s holiday will be remembered as The Thanksgiving RV Adventure. I’m already feeling grateful that we get to do it and I’m sure we’ll have some stories to tell.
