Here in the USA, it is Thanksgiving, a once a year gathering of the clans day, that some say was created when “separatists” who were oppressed in England, sailed across the ocean during storm season in the midst of winter 1620 and landed accidentally farther south on the East coast of North America instead of farther to the north where the Jamestown colony was already established.
But, the time of rites of thankfullness in this season of the year, originated far before the 1600’s, and was ever present as a feast day in most any lands that had a mild and harsh season, or four seasons, spring, summber, autumn and winter…. for this time was in the interstices between the back breaking labors of harvest ending in late October and the beginning of cold and especially, dark, winter and its long nights and dark mornings of ice time onset in November … this was also amongst many of the agricultural and husbandry tribes that you yourself descended from, a time of a feast… a time to say, we made it another season,
we have our stores laid in, we will be making babies soon so they will be born in warm weather, we will soon be planting a crop of winter wheat and braving cold, we will soon be doing the heavy work of hauling wood for more fires in the stoves, breaking river ice with hatchets to bring water to the hearth and to wash in, we now have all our featherbeds aired and sewn, our last wash of the year with pillow covers stacked to last.
And now, we will have the wine we made from the grapes and apples, the peaches and pears. Now we will have the beer from the hops picked at just the right time. Now we will have a table groaning feast, and music and singing and dancing and laughing and falling down and telling jokes and stories, and a few fist fights, a few children in temporary tears, a few young ones eyeing each other, a few of the middle aged and the elders holding hands and shining-smiling, and the cooks worrying and scurrying and the dogs waiting for any dropped bit, and the cats letting all the humans share the cats’ large cottages for their merriment.
Thus, I’d just say this to you: Dr. E’s Rules for holidays
1. something must be hand-carried
2. something must break or spill
3. something must be termporarily lost
4. someone must at least leave a mitten atop a car while they drive off
5. the dog must eat something meant only for humans
6a. a human must eat something meant only for the dog
6b. there must be at least a tiny food fight, maybe of biscuits
7. there must be at least one off color joke which half the table blushes over and the other half laugh themselves silly
8. there must be at least one person who worries and worries whether the entre, the dessert, the milk, the coffee, the whatever is really enough, and really really alright.
9. often at least one person must drink or eat too much
10. most of all, stories must be told, funny ones, sad ones, happy ones, silly ones…
and this last, #10, being the greater point and part of the heart of it all…
and all the while remembering that crabby people who show up once a year, uncle so and so, auntie thus and so, are there to teach you some small thing, and if something doesnt go wrong in some way, hopefully not dire, then there will be no stories to tell. You can quote me on that.
Thus, remember entirely that nothing is the end of the world if/when we forget a dish or the napkins or the stuffing comes out all stuck together like oatmeal (tell everyone, this new dressing pudding is just so wonderful!), or even if the turkey flies off the platter and ricochets across the floor (wash it off/ act like nothing happened… wherever the turkey came from, trust this, it was not sterile there)…
even if the table leg collapses and all the silver and food fly to the floor, it gives opportunity to have a picnic on the carpet (and later regale carepet steamer rental clerk with how carpet got doused with gravy/potatoes with fork marks in it) … and so on, let nothing disturb you, let nothing irritate you, let nothing make you think you might lose your mind…
over things that ‘the great somebody’ told us long ago about some things being simply not up to par, or simply ‘not done’ by civilized people at holiday gatherings
Simply ‘not done,’ meaning all the children never spill bright red cranberry sauce on anything white that cost over ten dollars, that all food (and non-food like yams that are more candy than yams…) reaches table piping hot all at once (can you hear me hooting with laughter),
that all children act perfectly polite (good advice for some of the grown ups, ay?), that everything is ready at least 1/2 hour before company comes (I am howling now… remembering times holding hot pan in one hand to keep food from burning, and tripping around in circles in the kitchen trying to put on hose with other hand),
and that there will be no frog-snoring relatives (like, fer shure), there will be no one who is late, (ay! please, on Latino time?) and there will be no one who is sullen, exhausted, so shy, or overly saccharine. In other words that everyone ought look like they stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
When in fact, most of us look and act like we stepped out of an Ab-normal Rockwell painting.
And all this just to say, so enjoy your kidlettes, your elders, your loved ones, snapshot them with your heart, file at least 12 really good pictures away in your soul, be loving rather then be ‘right’, see how humorous and lovable most all human beings really are, at their best, but not at their best also.
Know for most of the ‘fam damily,’ you dont have to live with them forever, only love them for today… dry the dang dishes the job you detest, let the football addiction reign if need be, suffer the one or two insufferable peeps… seek out the ones you rarely see and ask them to tell them about that one time when they did/ went/ tried to do…. x. Gather stories. This is the richest part.
and if you get a chance see yourself as others see you, as the elder in training, or rookie elder, or deeply rooted elder, and that all those younger belong to you, and all those older, belong to you, and all those who are your litter mates belong to you also…
and most of all, you belong to them, just by being.
Like we used to say in my ‘girl gang’ days,
‘play it loose, go for juice,’ meaning be cool, be calm, and go for what has meaning, what really matters most.
Blessed Thanksgiving to you all, no matter where in the world you live… a day of gratitude in a world that is often difficult to row through… so many souls trying on the same day, to recall things and people and matters they are grateful for… the soul’s work.. how beautiful is that?! Just right.
dr.e
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Parts here excerpted from ‘Holidays with Elders,’ from The Dangerous Old Woman ©2010 by dr. cp estés, all rights reserved.
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CODA
The picture is a tomato fight in Italy… and reminiscent of some of our family holidays long ago when all my own elders were all alive and newly come to America as refugees, and a feast day was often also a melee day of one kind or another. Now they are all gone, my elders, and I see their shadows play on the walls of our gatherings, those who have gone on. I am the elder now and sometimes it seems so odd, for I know time is of the essence in one way, and we have all the time in the world, in another sense entirely. And even so, I miss the old ones so, the dear ones far older and wiser than me.