Our Fake Thanksgiving

Tis the season to go through a whole roll of Press-n-Seal, that super ultrasonic nuclear (or whatever) plastic wrap that sticks to anything, even wood. It’s a good thing, as Martha would say, because this week I have pulled out pans and bowls and platters I haven’t seen in, oh, at least a year. I’ve cooked my share of what Laura is calling Our Fake Thanksgiving—because we’re not doing it on the appointed Thursday of Thanksgiving. I keep explaining to her that we don’t know what day the Pilgrims had Thanksgiving or even the actual date Jesus was born, but that we’re a really calendar-driven culture, we picked some dates, and now we’re good to go. But there’s no law about what day you eat your turkey and stuffing. This is not a convincing argument to her.

William doesn’t care, of course. He’s so busy wanting to stop at every mall we drive by to see Santa Claus that he’s pretty effectively skipped right over Thanksgiving proper. Her whole life, Laura wouldn’t touch Santa with a ten-foot pole—we have I think one picture of her with Santa Claus, taken when she was almost a year old as we were walking on the quad at Alabama and Santa strolled by. We snapped one picture, me standing next to Santa holding Laura leaning as far away from that creepy red guy as humanly possible. This works out well for Will, for whom his parents have extremely low Santa expectations. He is just fascinated, and has been running around snatching Santa hats off displays to run around asking his sister what she wants for Christmas. What surprises me about is this is that the first time we saw Santa was the Friday before Thanksgiving, a whole week beforehand. You’d think Santa’d have stuff to do this time of year. Yeah, yeah, I know all about that whole elf theory, but still. (Insert obligatory grip about how the Christmas decorations and supplies were out in the stores the day after Halloween, which is after all pretty hard on a family with a three-year old with a really limited concept of when Christmas will come.)

So though Will thinks it’s Christmas practically tomorrow, today’s Our Fake Thanksgiving, and I made the stuffing and sweet potato crunch and “the green stuff” (our family’s version of the southern gelatin salad) and a loaf of sourdough bread to toast and spread with spinach dip and a castle cake. Yes, in a moment of holiday weakness I bought a castle cake pan from William Sonoma for William. I really have got to stop this pan madness. But the cake looks beautiful, except for a little breaking around the bottom, which I’ll know to cover with some ivy or something next time. I ended up making six things instead of the two I promised to make, and I’m sure my mother will have done the same, so it should be a good day for an afternoon nap. Possibly the last one until January.