In Praise of an Unjustly Ignored Thanksgiving Movie...

With both the annual day of feasting AND the annual day of consumer insanity behind us, I want to address what I believe to be an egregious example of cable television's dropping the holiday ball: Why was Home for the Holidays not in heavy rotation throughout the last week or so?

This film was released fourteen years ago (say... the very year Jeff and I tied the knot!), and it captures in a mere hour and forty or so the essence of all we love and hate about Thanksgiving spent with the family. The aging parents who are loathe to accept that their children are adults. The tension between siblings who have moved far away and those who have stayed in the old hometown. The dotty relative who can be counted on to reveal family skeletons in full view of the poor outsider who has been dragged in as a guest. The painful realization that you can't really ever go home again, and the warmth you'll find there nevertheless. And of course, it is all wrapped very loosely around what might turn out to be a love story.

I was looking for this movie on cable all week before the big day, but when it did not materialize I dug out our relatively ancient VHS copy so I could get my yearly fix (yes--our DVD player plays videos as well... we are SO out of media step).

I guess it's a mixed blessing, this failure by the powers that be to recognize a potential holiday classic. At least it won't be played to death like It's a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Story. But if you are seeking a film to put you in the proper frame of mind for a fraught family gathering, this is your film.

Dinner Disaster Deftly Dodged!

Not every Thanksgiving celebration goes smoothly. There was that first year we hosted after we purchased our condo... we blew a fuse, but we didn't realize it until I went to baste the turkey and found the oven was not as hot as it might be. (Until we had the kitchen renovated, there was not enough power coming into the kitchen, and if you ran the microwave and the coffeemaker and the range at the same time, oops! And sometimes it just blew for no discernible reason. But there were no lights on that particular circuit, so it was sometimes hard to tell when it had blown.) No problem... we just flipped the fuse switch, turned the heat up a bit, and finished cooking the turkey. Dinner was just a tad later than usual and no harm done.

Then the oven temperature started to waver. That made for some years when the bird was done sooner, and some when it was done later. We always rolled with the punches.

But this year, we faced an unforeseen problem that threatened to derail the whole thing: a putrid bird.

The stuffing was all mixed and ready when I hauled our fresh (or so I thought) bird into the sink and started to remove its plastic casing. I had just lifted the sheathing and slid in the knife point, making that first inroad toward the bird itself, when the odor of rotting fowl wafted up to my horrified nose. Not a scent one wants to encounter at any point in one's life, but triply so late on Thanksgiving morning, when one knows that the chances of finding a fresh turkey in what few supermarkets are open will be slim to none.

Sigh.

Nevertheless, Jeff volunteered to go on a turkey hunt 'round the nearby stores.

Of course, no fresh turkey. But they did have fresh turkey breasts at Dominicks. And some barbecued turkey wings. That's good enough in a pinch, and there were only four of us to feed. And anyway, most people just eat the breast anyway. And the wings, if they are good and crispy.

Thank goodness the turkey breast was, indeed, fresh. And it made a nice feast for our little band of Thanksgivers.

Now, although I know it was the turkey and not our new fridge (the fridge having that great digital temperature monitor on the door), I'm not purchasing a fresh bird anymore. I'm buying a frozen fowl and thawing it out. I think it's unlikely that such a bird would from its plastic cocoon smelling to high heaven.