thanksgiving
Originally uploaded by Brite Lights photos.
Time to run up the credit cards again, still recovering from last year's day after Thanksgiving orgy of spending.
My main memory of Thanksgiving from upstate New York was a pounding headache the day after from the Manhattans my uncle, Howard McAvoy, would make, drinks that even as a teenager I was allowed to have one of.
One drink? Ha!
(Here's the recipe: three parts blended whiskey, two parts sweet vermouth, dash of bitters, dash of cherry juice, pour over ice and drain into Manhattan glass.)
As I had Thanksgiving dinner yesterday with my daughter and various in-laws, there was a lot of talk of what store to hit today, where the best buys would be and how much loot to pack away for Christmas presents.
I remember Thanksgiving in the 60s as being all about the food (and drink, ok, and drink). It was the only time of the year that we had turkey, a decidedly more tasty bird than the Super Duper chickens that were a staple of my diet growing up. I swear those chickens were genetically linked to rubber trees.
It was also a very social day with people dropping by the house all afternoon, grabbing a quick Manhattan before toddling off to the next Manhattan stop or their eventual destination for their feast.
After the feast - and cleanup - the rugs got rolled up at my aunt's house and the records came on, records that mortified those of us early teenagers. Good God - they played the Polka!
Mostly the women danced while the men fell asleep in chairs, stultified by a combination of drink and way too much food.
Today I woke up hungry, the other thing I remember from the day after Thanksgiving, which was no problem because the family would prepare so much food for the whole clan that everyone took home enough food to keep us in turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing for a week. Although as teenager, I remember putting a pretty good dent in that food with a speed my mother found almost alarming.
Instead of turkey leftovers today, however, I'm going to do a very California thing and go out to a little cafe down the street for a light breakfast - sans any poultry - before deciding which stores to attack later today. The newspaper today was full of advertisements, too.
But I'm not shopping for Christmas gifts for people. I'm in search of new boat stuff, of course.
Sailboats need gifts, too, or at least their captains do.
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