by CWO guest blogger Caryn Welz-Ritchie
Thanksgiving
is a holiday steeped in tradition. As families come together, traditions blend
and new ones develop. When children grow up and start families of their own,
more traditions are born. In time, there are a lot of traditions to be
followed, some of which don’t make the cut.
The
Thanksgiving traditions in my family focused only on the food. Special china or
silver did not appear. The table setting was not Martha Stewart. The food was
what was important, and it was everywhere.
My
Aunt Mary would come over and we would bake pies a few days ahead. These were
traditional: apple, blueberry, pumpkin and chocolate. My Italian grandparents
would come over the morning of Thanksgiving and preside over the cooking. My
Mother’s six sisters and their families arrived later.
The
meal had to include a pasta course (usually lasagna), a turkey, a ham (because
Aunt Anna didn’t like turkey), and a beef roast just because the oven was
already on.
The
sides were basic and less important. What was more of a tradition was the
selection of fruits and nuts. We had pomegranates, dried figs and dates, and
bowls of assorted nuts in their shell. After dessert we’d sit around and drink
wine, crack nuts and play pinochle or seven and one-half, the Sicilian version
of black jack. We didn’t have touch football games with the cousins like “the
Medagons”, my American friends.
My
husband’s family sat down to an elegant table using his grandmother’s Limoges
china and engraved silver. Serving dishes were silver and glassware was
crystal. Cloth napkins were folded at each place setting (in lieu of a
community mopene). A Russell Stover foil-wrapped turkey sat on each dessert
plate. Handmade cloth John and Priscilla
Alden dolls sat on the table next to small plaster turkeys. The dolls and
turkeys have sat on a Ritchie Thanksgiving table for over 100 years.
The
turkey was carved at the table, just like in a Norman Rockwell painting. Everyone was dressed in their best, all seven
of them: my husband, his parents, grandmother and three maiden aunts. Dinner
was polite and quiet. After dinner, desert was one pie and some type of steamed
pudding with hard sauce (I had never heard of this). Footballs games were
watched and board games were played and everyone went home early.
When
Thanksgiving started to be at our house, my husband and I blended our family
traditions. I incorporated the elegance from his family with the good food from
mine. I use his grandmother’s china and silver. The John and Priscilla dolls and
the plaster turkeys sit proudly in their places of honor. The table is elegant
yet welcoming.
I
usually cook lasagna and a turkey. There are many desserts, including pies and
Italian pastry, and the traditional dried fruits and nuts. I’m the only one to bother
to crack the nuts and eat the figs and dates, but this tradition is important
to me.
The
guest list is wide open. We have our family and invite anyone else who is going
to be alone: neighbors, college friends of my sons and friends of friends. This
was our traditional Thanksgiving until we moved to Cape Cod.
Our
Thanksgivings on Cape Cod changed. Both our sons moved to other parts of the
country and the new tradition was that they did not come home for
Thanksgiving.
I
still cooked for Keith and I, and tried to convince other neighbors whose
children were away to join us. It has been this way for the last 10 years, and
it always has made me sad. I need the noise of a crowd, or at least a small
gathering.
This
year we will be making new traditions. My son and his wife have moved to Cape
Cod after living in California for the past ten years. They will be with us and
we will cook our dinner together.
They
traditionally make a champagne crusted spiral ham and drink Mimosas all day
with the leftover champagne. My husband wants a traditional turkey dinner along
with the ham. I don’t eat meat anymore so I’ll probably make a pasta dish.
We
seem to have come full circle. As long as I have the oven on I may as well
throw in a beef roast.
John
and Priscilla Alden will once again preside over dinner. After dinner we will
drink wine, watch football and play card games. The numbers are fewer, Canasta
replaces pinochle, but the love of family is the tradition that is the constant
with each generation.
Happy
Thanksgiving!
If you have
Thanksgiving traditions that you’d like to share with our readers, please email
CWO publisher Nicola Burnell with your story: Nicola@CapeWomenOnline.com
Karyn! I did not know your were a pisana!! I totally grasped your thoughts and lived through your descriptions. My Thanksgivings, growing up in the Bronx, were exactly as yours, starting with lasagna, ending with the nuts and it was always my grandmother who did every part. My husband's family, also Italian-American, played it out differently. They did their holidays much more in the tradition of the "Metagaini". But, it was my grandmother who started the chocolate turkey-at-the-plate for the kiddies and to this day, that tradition goes on. I just gave Lucy and Phoebe their turkeys to pack in the suitcases and place on the table of the "Metagani" grandparents in Florida and this year, we are celebrating our first "Friendsgiving" right here, on the Cape. Our circle has not yet come around.
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