Thanksgiving looked a lot different for me this year. Instead of the usual huge family gathering at my aunt’s house, we all hopped on a zoom instead. Although it was wonderful to be able to see my family socially distanced, it definitely doesn’t beat in person interaction. So this is me reminiscing on past Thanksgivings and missing the love and light from my family:
It’s that time of year again. The time where families meet in their best-dressed outfits and, in their arms, gift baskets filled with exotic fruits or nuts, they had come bearing gifts to the hostess. In the beginning, there is a slight tension, a look of forcefulness behind the gleam of their teeth because we haven’t seen each other for a year. We don’t know how much we have changed or if we are still the same person that they had left a year ago. Formalities are exchanged. A brief hug that sort of dissipates the tension is initiated, the warmth from our bodies creating a comfortable atmosphere. Quick kisses on the cheeks and head pats are given to the younger children and smiles turn more genuine. The smell of food is already wafting to our noses, enticing us and drawing us closer to the kitchen. My aunt shoos the other aunts and uncles away and beckons the cousins and me to come in with a flick of her bejeweled wrist. We all exchange a brief smile already knowing what will come.
The kitchen is toasty and the smells of spices and meats intermingled with the sharp smell of virgin apple cider cocktails in a pitcher of ice cubes, waiting to quench our thirst. She directs us to sit on the wooden stools, scattered around the kitchen as we form a semicircle around her. She grabs pots, pans, and cooking utensils, placing them into the hands of each person. I receive a spatula with a handle smooth and worn like the keys of a keyboard. My aunt’s hair is loosely tied in a bun that sits atop her hair, a single pair of ebony chopsticks holding her black strands together. When she bustles around the kitchen, her hair has a mind of its own, swaying from side to side as she opens drawers and cupboards to get our necessary ingredients. She takes cubed potatoes out of the fridge, puts them into a pan, and turned the heat to a low simmer. I begin to mash the potatoes, seeing the pale little cubes turn into much with a strike of my spatula. As my aunt watches over me with keen eyes, I poured in the milk, a white ribbon that flowed steadily into the pan, turning the yellow mixture into a creamy white. My spatula rode the white waves, twisting and turning the cloud of pureed potatoes until it reached an even consistency.
On the other end of the kitchen, my eldest cousin is tasked with making the salad. She cuts up the red romaine tomatoes, first into halves and then quarters. She adds leafy greens, baby carrots, and beets into one bowl, drizzling vinegar on top. We watch her as she mixes the salad together, a flash of green, orange, and red flying through the air. We laugh when she drops one of the leafy greens, but our laughter is soon suppressed behind my aunt’s glare but when she turned her back on us, we look at each other, our twinkling eyes betraying our amusement. On the island in the middle of the kitchen, my other cousin is making a lemon meringue pie. We watch her as she kneads and molds the amorphous blob between her hands into a dough-like consistency. To make the filling, she combines an egg and fresh lemonade, squeezed from a strainer just this morning, flour, and custard filling, putting it into a bowl and stirring it until it became pleasant yellow color. We help her pour it into the dough-lined pan, already the tangy yet sweet taste of custard on our minds. My aunt moves back and forth between all of us, tasting a little bit here, adding more salt there. She gives her nods of approval out sparingly, always finding something to fix. With a not so gentle tap of her wooden chopsticks on our hands, she would teach us the proper way to make cranberry sauce (you have to turn it over not stir it) or the correct way to sauté mushrooms (you have to flip them quickly or else they lose flavor).
For the next hour or two, my cousins and I just talk while we are cutting, dicing, and smashing our dinner up. About life, school, people. We laugh until our stomachs hurt as an anecdote is told or we hug someone comfortingly as they tell us their hardships. We touch on so many topics in such a short period of time that by the end of the conversation, it seems we have seen each other every day. Over time, the talking subsides and we sit in comfortable silence as our hands continue moving, happy to be in each other’s presence. The guy cousins are huddled in the corner near the oven intently watching the turkey as if it would come alive at any moment and jump out of the oven. Their only task is to check the turkey every once in a while to make sure that the meat doesn’t burn, an easy task for the most accident-prone people in the family. The girl cousins whisper behind their backs, making light jokes about their intense stares.
Finally, the pie is in the oven and the foods are on their rightful plates. We are all covered from head to toe in flour and kitchen oils and it seems impossible to clean ourselves up. Nevertheless, my aunt shoos us out of the kitchen to set up the dining table. We place the placards with our family’s names onto the tables in designated areas, with the cousins having their own tables and the adults as well. The cards have little red or orange leaves in the corner and are written in black cursive ink, a beautiful addition to the plain white table. After managing to clean ourselves up as best as we could, my cousins and I heard a bell. My entire family files into the dining room, sitting ourselves down in their appropriate places. Finally, my uncle comes in, brandishing his new knife set. We all stare at him anticipatingly as he opens the oven. We see steam rising onto his face as he reaches in and pulls out the turkey. It is a perfect brown color, speckled with black spots and huge as if it has been stuffed to the fullest extent. He grabs a knife and begins to cut it slowly, careful that everyone will get an even amount. After he is done, we all stand up and begin getting our food. Our work is laid out across the table in a perfect arrangement with the mashed potatoes sitting next to the turkey and the salad in a bowl near the lemon meringue pie. For the rest of the night, we stuff our faces silly and we laugh and talk, enjoying each other’s company. As the sun is setting, I sit back in my chair with glasses of bubbly cider in one hand and a spoon with remnants of lemon meringue pie in the other, just staring out into the lawn as the last rays of sunlight turned everything into a hazy glow. As I was sitting here I came to the conclusion that I was content with life and thankful for my family.
