RIP, Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is dead to me. I’m so done with it. Year after year, I cook this meal that’s totally elaborate and delicious, but year after year it’s never on the table on time, everything is chaos, dishes are everywhere, the children are alternately ignored and yelled at, my back hurts, my feet hurt, I’m crabby and stressed, I don’t enjoy dinner when we finally eat, and then after dinner there’s still hours of clean-up. Plus, Charlotte throws up at Thanksgiving dinner every other year. (Guess which this year this was?)

This year, I finally just got fed up. Enough is enough. Next year we’re inviting friends over and buying a fully cooked Thanksgiving dinner from a grocery store. Last-week-me would have considered that base sacrilege; this-week-me thinks it sounds like the best idea ever, as long as someone else picks it up. There are meals I don’t mind cooking, like Greek Easter, and prep work I don’t mind putting in, like six hours folding spanakopita. But Greek Easter is manageable. The elements are complex but limited and almost everything can be done in advance, which makes timing simple.

Thanksgiving is out of control. It’s like a sprawling Cthulhu of culinary elements that all require chopping, toasting, roasting, basting, reducing, mixing, chilling, rising, whisking, simmering, and tasting.

I even split the work with a friend this year, and it was still too much to handle. It still required all four burners, my oven, and the oven next door. It was still late, confused, and chaotic. I still got crabby and even the Pogues didn’t help, because they just added to the chaos. The moment when I snapped off “Whiskey You’re the Devil” because I just couldn’t handle one more irritant was the moment I knew that things had to change.

I probably won’t really buy a fully-cooked Thanksgiving, because I’m neurotic. But I absolutely refuse to cook Thanksgiving dinner next year. I’ll probably make something like penne alla vodka and tiramisu, and declare Slapsgiving on anyone who even hints that they think I ought to make a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving.