Thanksgiving – Whoopsie Piggle

On July 7, 2007, the expanded and renovated Akron Art Museum reopened with a retrospective exhibit of American painter Norman Rockwell. In my 1970s childhood, Rockwell’s endearing, if not sentimental, covers from the Saturday Evening Post — 322 painted over 47 years — were ubiquitously reproduced.

Yet Rockwell did not shy away from political subjects, including 1943’s Four Freedoms covers (freedom of speech and of worship, from want and from fear), 1961’s “Golden Rule” (a version of which Nancy Reagan gifted the United Nations in 1985) and 1964’s iconic “The Problem We Live With” in which 6-year-old Ruby Bridges walks to school escorted by four U.S. marshals. Bridges was the first Black child to attend a formerly all-white public elementary school in New Orleans. Though not shown, Rockwell makes clear that the crowd Bridges walked past was viciously hostile.

My first three sons, then ages 13, 10 and 7, enjoyed the exhibit, but it most impressed my second son, Hugo. The following spring, when Miller South students were to dress as their favorite artist, Hugo wore a chambray shirt, khaki pants, horn rimmed glasses and held a tobacco pipe in his mouth — just as Rockwell does in a self-portrait. Ten years later, when Hugo worked at Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home in Lenox, Massachusetts, he toured Rockwell’s nearby home and museum.

Over the years, I’ve purchased Rockwell collectibles at thrift stores and estate sales for Hugo. The most treasured is a museum-quality book with glossy color reprints, several lightly attached to pages so they can be removed and framed. Last month at the American Cancer Society Discovery Shop in Wallhaven, I found six porcelain replicas of various Rockwell Saturday Evening Post covers. All were 50% off their already reasonable prices.

But did my nearly 28-year-old, recently married son really want half a dozen figurines? I called to check.

“Oh, it’s impossible to go overboard on Rockwell, Mama. Claudia and I were just joking that we might need to buy a display cabinet for my collection.”

After we hung up, I also found several mugs emblazoned with Rockwell images. I bought them all.

Holly Christensen found these Norman Rockwell collectibles for her son Hugo's birthday at the American Cancer Society Discovery Shop in Akron's Wallhaven neighborhood. — Hugo’s birthday bounty. Three of the figurines included miniature copies of the original Saturday Evening Post cover they replicate.

For many years, my family made the long drive to northern Michigan for Thanksgiving. My stepmom’s next door neighbor, who spent Thanksgivings in Ohio, would let us stay at her house. My stepmom and I used both kitchens to cook up enough dishes to cover a large table while my boys helped their grandpa, the city sexton, tidy the cemetery before he furloughed during winter’s coldest months.

After my first two sons went away to college, we managed complicated logistics to continue spending Thanksgiving together in Michigan, which we all treasured. And then, like many families, we did not gather in 2020 because of COVID. The next summer, my stepmom and the neighbor got into a (stupendously silly) dispute and we lost our place to stay.

Everyone came to Akron in 2022, but last year, Hugo, whose birthday was on Thanksgiving, had to work that weekend. From Akron and D.C., we made our way to Madison, Wisconsin. where Hugo and his wife live. Hugo again must work this year but rather than travel, we’ve decided to stay in our respective cities. There are those who persist, sometimes at great lengths, in carrying on traditions long after they are enjoyable. Forced annoyance, if not misery, makes no sense. It can also preclude the joy found in fresh experiences.

Once the decision was made, I felt a sense of relief. No long drive after days of packing food, gifts (might as well swap Christmas presents when together) and all that is needed for several humans and dogs. And with just my two youngest children with me, to heck with the traditional (labor intensive) dinner portrayed in Rockwell’s “Freedom from Want.”

The dad of my littles (now 14 and 12) had no plans, so I invited him to join us. Together we will make pork shoulder roast with peach and whole grain mustard gravy, mashed potatoes, Brussel sprouts, coleslaw and my butternut squash pies, which for more than a quarter century Hugo has considered his birthday “cakes.”

Alas, Hugo won’t be here for his pies this Thanksgiving and I had to spend a small fortune to ship his birthday bounty of fragile figurines to Madison. But I am comforted by two thoughts. First, someone’s Rockwell collection, probably donated by their children, happily made its way to a new collector. Secondly, I will make my pies again in mid-December when Hugo flies to Akron to spend a long weekend with me.

All will be well, and all will be well and all manner of things will be well. Blessings on your Thanksgiving.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

We blew the first rule of green living. We try to live simply, but with seven people in this family, it’s not so simple. Our new Toyota Sienna, purchased when the cost of fixing the old Sienna was greater than its value by a couple thousand dollars, can theoretically transport eight passengers, all seat-belted.

Figure two adults in the front seats. As my two oldest sons are now 6’2” and 6’ tall, four of us fit the physical description of “adult.”

The two captain’s seats in the second row are each dedicated to a car seat—one for two-year-old Leif and the other for this year’s newest member, Lyra. The middle seat in the second row, which is almost as narrow as a coach seat on a commercial airlines, had to be removed in order to access the back row of seats.

The back row, with the least amount of leg room possible as the middle seats have to be pushed all the way back to accommodate the toddler and infant car seats, might work if we had children under ten years of age, but note the heights mentioned above. Also, in this family, our height is all leg. Hugo and I have 32” inseams, Claude’s is 34”.

Sheltie Shuttle — Lily & Hoover, ready to roll

In the very back, where the families in the Sienna ads store their luggage, we have a folded down stroller, which we very much will use, and two Shelties. Those are dogs that look like little collies and luckily like lying together in close quarters.

Where to put the turkey? The small suitcases of clothing? The diapers? The boys’ backpacks? My laptop? So much for simple living.

We departed in two vehicles on two different days.

I left yesterday in the Sienna with Jules and the babies, the dogs, the turkey and all that these beings needed. Max is leaving shortly in his Camry with Hugo and will grab Claude in Ann Arbor on his way up north to Grandma’s house in Charlevoix. Until the kids drive on their own to Grandma’s, I don’t see how we will be able to do it any differently.

We are a modern family.

Grandma is my stepmom. Grandpa is her husband but not my dad. My dad and stepmom, who married when I was three, divorced in the early 90s after Dad had moved to Arizona in 1990. My stepmom never joined him in Arizona and he never returned to Michigan. Fulfilling the cliché that is life, Dad met another woman with children of her own and eventually seemed to forget about us. My stepmom never did and she has been the primary grandparent of my boys’ lives until I met Max through whom they have gained a second set of grandparents. Even before Max and I began producing blonde babies of our own, Max’s mom claimed my three boys as full members, with all privileges, of her grand-brood.

Every time I’ve had a baby, my stepmom was soon there to take care of us for as long as she could stay. As soon as they were old enough, my boys began spending many weeks each summer with Grandma and Grandpa in northern Michigan, their house just a block from sandy Michigan Beach on Lake Michigan. And we come up every other Thanksgiving for Grandma’s holiday dinner. Her herbed rolls, made from scratch and cooked in loads of butter, are worth every gram of fat. I’ve never mastered her herb rolls and I’ve told Jules, who began baking breads this fall, to pay close attention tomorrow.

For years I have supplied the turkey, fresh-killed on the farm for which I host a co-op, which makes me sound like one of those über-mom-bloggers, but the way I host it is pretty lazy. All I do is reveal to the people in the co-op the code to my garage where I keep a refrigerator for the weekly deliveries. The members take turns (in alphabetical order) driving each Saturday to pick up the orders and bring them to the fridge in my garage. As a result, my food is delivered to my home every week.

This year’s turkey was executed and sealed in a plastic bag on Monday and delivered to my garage fridge that evening. I popped him in the Playmate cooler before we left yesterday and later today I will brine the bird in the same cooler. Playmates are the perfect size for brining a turkey and with a fresh-killed bird brining is, in my opinion, necessary.

When you buy your meat straight from the farmer who raised it, you inevitably learn a thing or two that you won’t pick up with your frozen Butterball. For example, meat must age in order to be edibly tender. We’ve all heard of aged beef, right? What that means is not some secret preparation, like the Kobe beef cattle who get massaged in life. Aging means a little decomposition. My fresh Tom hasn’t aged, but the brining will meet the requirements by helping break down his tougher connective tissues. Meanwhile, because he’s never been frozen, he’s not full of water. Nor chemicals or drugs because he’s also organic.

Which I guess gets to my point—know what is real and what really is. Your meat was an animal with a body who enjoyed being alive but I enjoy eating meat more than letting some animals continue to enjoy life. I don’t eat animals from factory farms when I can help it. Factory farm animals didn’t enjoy life as much as my organic turkey, though I’m sure they didn’t want to die for someone’s meal. I am thankful for our food, the people who grew it and the creatures who died so we could eat them. If it sounds ecumenical, it should.

That your blood relatives are genetically related is real. But real family are the people who show up, regardless of what you call them—mom, friend, brother, neighbor. Some of us are lucky to find family in our relatives. Some of us have to look beyond genetics to find our families. And my boys and I know the difference. We are all eager to get over the river and through the woods to my stepmom’s, and their very real grandma’s, house whenever we can.

When we arrived at 11:30 last night, there was a pot of split pea & ham soup waiting for us on the stove and bread baking in the oven.