Back around the turn of the century when I was a youngster, our family observed Thanksgiving by having dinner at the grandparents’ home.

Grandma would get “The Family China” down from the upper reaches of the kitchen cabinets.  Every piece (service for 12 including the tiny plates that held one “pat” of butter) had to be washed and dried (the old way) before it went to the table and again before going back in the cabinet.  I’m sure it saw more frequent use when it belonged to my great-grandmother or my great-great grandmother, but by the time I’d arrived, it was a once-a-year event. 

We used the “good silverware,” a white linen table cloth and napkins with our individual silver napkin rings.  This was fine dining at its best and woe be unto any child who would be so clumsy as to break or chip that China, spill on that table cloth or stain a napkin.

I didn’t then, and still don’t like turkey but, like it or not, turkey was on my plate right between the mashed potatoes drowning in gravy and dressing (not the stuff from a box, but the real deal!)  For every complaint, grandma was there with knife and fork, “Try just a little bite of turkey, honey.”  Her version of “a little bite” would have choked a horse.  As fate would have it, my daughter, Chris, doesn’t like turkey either.  The same grandma would tell her “Try just a little bite of turkey, honey.”   And I’d smile because, while grandma was cajoling my daughter, I’d already fed my share of turkey to the dog under the table. 

Just the memory of those Thanksgiving dinners was enough to sour Chris on ever wanting “The Family China” that had bypassed my mother and had, eventually, been consigned to boxes in my closet wherever we moved.  A few years ago, I gave those boxes to my niece, Lori, who never had the pleasure of dining at her great-grandma’s house, eating “just a little bite of turkey.”  We’re having chiles relleno for Thanksgiving dinner this year; for all I know, Lori is serving pigs-in-a-blanket on “The Family China.”  During it’s time in my care, I did run it through the dishwasher, and I’m sure I’ll hear about that sometime in the great “Hereafter,” but, meantime, I wouldn’t tell another soul in the family that I’d been so callous and disrespectful of family tradition.

Among other traditions that have fallen by the wayside are the tablecloth, napkins and silver napkin rings, grandma’s gravy (if it wasn’t nearly black, grandma would declare it “pale and wan” and burn it some more), candles in the silver candelabra, home-made dressing and, of course, the turkey.  Only Chris and I will remember, as we sit down to our contemporary dinner, going “over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house” for Thanksgiving.

Our pumpkin cheesecake is only a partial nod at tradition this year.  It’s been decades since I made pumpkin pies “from scratch,” and, at the time, I didn’t realize how many pies could be made from the meat of one medium-size pumpkin.  It makes me wonder what grandma did with the gallons of pumpkin that didn’t go into the single Thanksgiving pie. 

My brothers will be in Hawaii this year.  They’ll probably be at some luau where the Thanksgiving turkey is a roast pig.  Some traditions are just not worth keeping: marketing directors everywhere have created HallowThanksMas, where one holiday simply melts into the next and the next and the next.  We’ll no sooner watch the ball come down in Times’ Square before chocolate Easter bunnies show up on the shelves at Walmart.  And no one has to tempt me with, “Try just a little bite of chocolate, honey.”

Patt Morgan-Lloyd is a graduate of Adams State University, a former teacher and long-time director of the SLV Retired Senior Volunteer Program.