All family Thanksgivings have similarities and differences
FOURTH THURSDAY
By
Caroline Annafiglia
As we pull up in front of the house on Constance Street, Don says, "Looks like we're the first ones here."
In the back seat our 12 year-old daughter, Kim emits an extended sigh; "There won't be a single thing for me to do!"
I am already getting a familiar feeling, tension in my neck, a sort of tugging in my frontal lobe. I know by the end of the day I will have a doozy of a headache. "Come on, let's just blast our way in." I get out of the passenger seat and reach back to get the carton of our contributions to the Thanksgiving dinner. I have made, among other things, cranberry-orange relish, knowing full well that at some point one or more of Don's brothers will look at the bowl and make retching sounds or some other subtle sophisticated coded message designed to convey the information that there is only one acceptable cranberry sauce and it is jellied. Furthermore it should look just like the can it came out of, the corrugations of the can wall clearly visible on its glistening ruby surface. My family happens to like cranberry orange relish so I always bring it in a Tupper Ware container so that I can take the leftovers home. It is given grudging space on the table and every year my mother-in-law says the same thing, "Oh, you made that again!"
We don't knock on the door, just plow on through, pushing aside the rolled up rug that keeps the cold air from coming in and the faint but unmistakable odor of old cat urine from going out. The house looks large from the outside but it is cut up into many small rooms that abut at odd angles. It was built during the depression and was basically a shack made out of wood from old fish crates. Over the years Don's grandfather added a room here, a hallway there whenever he could get his hands on recycled building materials. It is a tribute to my mother-in-law that it looks pretty good. She has papered and painted and covered the crappy wooden floors with nice carpeting. She also has a very good eye for antiques lurking in second hand stores. Some of the furniture is really lovely to look at although a fair amount of it won't hold the weight of a fully-grown man.
My father-in-law shouts from upstairs, "Jezus Kerist, don’t let the cats out!" The cats are nowhere in sight. The hall in which we are standing is far too small for three of us plus a box of more or less welcome food. There is no where to put anything down to take off our coats, so we just keep on walking straight into the kitchen where Don's mom is basting the turkey on the open oven door. She is wearing a silk blouse and pearls, inappropriate fancy dress for major culinary efforts in my opinion, but there was the time they came to visit us when we were building a log cabin in the woods and she wore white slacks and heels, so what can I expect? Martha is a very nice lady and I try to spend most of my time with her when we visit. She has been seriously outnumbered by men in this house for ages and it is fun for her to have a woman to talk to. She can be insecure about her own abilities especially in the cooking department, and one must tread carefully whenever one dines chez Rolfsson.
"Ooh, smells yummy Grandma. I love turkey!" It does indeed smell wonderful, a sort of distillation of all Thanksgivings past; the turkey, the steam from boiling potatoes, the yeasty smell of the rolls melding into one stomach growling olfactory banquet.
"Here we are!" I say in my cheeriest, most hopeful that this year things will be wonderful for a change and not end up with someone a) crying, b) throwing up, c) having to go to the E.R. in a pathetic bid for attention, or d) having a huge fight with 1) their spouse, 2) their brother, 3) their cousin, or any permutation of the above mentioned, voice.
Martha puts the turkey back in the oven and straightens up, her face beet red from the heat. "Hi, sweetie" she says to Kim. "Marcie and Heather will be here in a while. Rose called to say she is having car trouble. Patrick has gone over to pick them up."
Rose is my stupid fat welfare cheat of an ex-sister-in-law. She isn't even married to my brother-in-law Patrick anymore but my in-laws have kept her around so they can see their grandchildren which I might be more understanding of if they were not such brats. Every holiday one of them ends up needing emergency medical care for some nebulous fainting spell.
By now Don has put the carton containing the relish, pumpkin pie and garlic mashed potatoes on the kitchen table and has disappeared upstairs to his father's den. Kim gives her grandmother a quick hug and follows him up the stairs. Martha sighs; she doesn’t get to see Kim often but a lifetime of exclusion from the "inner sanctum" of her husband's den is just one more cross to bear. Among other fairly interesting and bizarre oddities, Grandpa has in his den a degu (a sort of South American rodent) and a live tarantula in a cage, guaranteeing that I will not be coming up to spoil the fun. It is actually much better for them to stay upstairs delaying the time when he comes into the kitchen and starts an uproar about something. It doesn't have to be much. It doesn't have to be anything at all really. It'll happen.
"What can I do to help, Martha?"
My mother-in-law by this is time removing the containers of food I have brought from the carton. "Oh," she says, in an almost inaudible voice, "it’s that." She puts the relish container down on the farthest corner of the table as if she is worried that it might be laced with the missing anthrax spores from that University of Iowa laboratory. "Just tell, me" she snarls, "What the hell am I going to feed Linda?"
"I don't think you have to worry about it. She always says don't worry about it," I offer. "She can eat plenty of the other stuff and not have to eat turkey. It's not a big deal." Now I am a vegetarian also, but I am willing to take the karmic consequences and eat it once a year rather than upset my mother-in-law. Linda apparently has "principles" and won't eat the damn turkey. This is a yearly issue. Fortunately for them, she and my brother-in-law Joe live in Wyoming now, so it is only once a year at most that the subject comes up. But it is a definite subject of controversy and a source of possible family discord every Thanksgiving. But then what isn't?
The front door opens and my husband's brother Mike and his wife Linda, not the vegetarian Linda, come in. They live in New York City and are so cool and brittle that I wonder if they turned around too fast if they both might shatter into glittering sharp shards. They stop in the hallway to take off their matching black kidskin jackets. They are very tall and slim and I doubt that they cut their own hair like we do. Both are wearing dark glasses. Mike is a black belt in Karate and owns three martial arts schools in New York City. Linda is an editor at New York Magazine. There is nowhere but the stair rail to put their jackets and Mike looks as if he is worried about the leather getting creased. Finally, gingerly, he lays the jackets across the banister.
"Hey, Nat" he says, meaning me. "Still driving that old shitbox I see." By which he means our well-broken in Honda Civic. He drives a Lexus. Don and I are both teachers in the part of Vermont known as the Northeast Kingdom, although if there is a king he sure hasn't taken very good care of his subjects lately. It's the poverty pocket of Vermont.
"Mmhm", I reply, refusing to rise to any bait. "Hey, Linda, nice to see you."
Mike makes a dive for the stairs and the outlaw's hideout, leaving Linda, who never really seems relaxed around the family, to bring in three bottles of very fine Pouilly Fusee. Linda doesn't cook. "Hi Martha, Hey Nat."
"Hello dear, you look nice. Of course you always do. It must be wonderful to live in New York and be able to shop in the designer boutiques."
Now my mother-in-law is no slouch herself as to sartorial splendor and since she lives 20 minutes from downtown Boston it isn't like she has to shop at the Mall of the North in Houlton, Maine for God's sake. I notice that she hasn't mentioned how nice I look, most likely because I shop at Goodwill by choice and my stuff always has a certain soft edge to it.
"Can I help?" Linda asks, glancing down at her white cashmere sweater apprehensively.
"You and Natalie could put the extra leaves in the dining room table and set it if you like. I tried to get Robert to set it up before but he had a fit as usual.
"Okay, where are the leaves and which tablecloth do you want to use?"
"Oh, my God! I forgot to iron the tablecloth. It's still in the dryer in the cellar. Could one of you go get it and iron it real quick?"
"I will", I volunteer reluctantly. My in-laws cellar is one of the creepiest places I've ever seen but I am used to it compared to Linda and since the steps down are so worn that they are transparent in places and we wouldn't want anything to happen to $300 worth of designer clothing, I forge on down. The light at the top of the stairs is burned out as usual, and the switch for the cellar lights is at the bottom. I keep to the right of each step, feeling my way along the damp and moldy rock wall. Don has told me stories of being down cellar when he was a kid and suddenly feeling as if he should definitely go upstairs now. Right now. Everyone in the family swears that there is a ghost that can only be glimpsed out of the corner of your eye and a chill that comes over you and, "God, where is that switch!" I find it and a mingy brown pall barely illuminates the space. I wade across a floor littered with dozens of yard sale finds, and pull the tablecloth out of the dryer. It is a mass of wrinkles having been left apparently for several days. Happily for me I know that the ironing board is upstairs so I turn tail and scoot as fast as I can up into the kitchen.
During my brief absence the other Linda and Don's brother Joe have arrived. We are closer to this couple than any of the other brothers and their wives. We shared a house in Vermont for a year with them and even though they live in Wyoming now, they move a lot, we keep in touch. They are Kim's godparents. "Hey you!" big hugs all around. Joe and Linda are a great looking couple in a "hippie" kind of way. Linda has a thick braid that reaches down to her waist, her hair is naturally curly and red. She, like me, tends to wear comfy second-hand store items often in weird but wonderful, “why didn't I think of that?”combinations. Joe is 6'5" and built like a flagpole. He also has a braid down to his waist. They currently live in an ashram where Joe is creating a peace garden. He's a landscaper.
I am holding the balled up tablecloth in front of me. Linda looks at me with a raised eyebrow. I make a tragic hopeless face that only she catches, making her laugh out loud, which gets my mother-in-law's attention. I think she suspects that we make a little fun of her. Okay, we can be fairly mean, behind her back.
She says "The board is set up in the spare room and the iron is there too, Natalie. Would you mind?"
"Not at all" I lie. Upstairs means that I will have to pay my respects to the family patriarch or resident looney in my opinion. Don's father, Robert is a brilliant man in his own way, a self-taught many things; jeweler, gemologist, he learned Mandarin Chinese for fun. He was a systems engineer for thirty-five years and we all hoped that when he retired he might mellow a bit. But he is a bitter, stressed out wreck, who's only delight it seems sometimes is goading his wife into vicious terrifying arguments. That would be bad enough but they seldom bother about details like other people in the room or at the table. Once we came down for a weekend and made the mistake of staying at the house instead of a hotel and the fighting was so bad Kim ran out of the house and refused to come back in for an hour. That cooled their jets. I don't think they really understand that most of us don't find the fun in it they seem to. And they really love Kim.
Linda and Linda (honestly, couldn't one of those guys have found someone with a different name?) head into the dining room to put the leaves in the table while I iron the cloth.
I am about to climb the stairs when the front door slams open and Rose charges into the hall way, her face red, tears standing ready to spill, in her eyes. This is not unusual; Rose can tear up at the slightest inkling that anyone might be thinking about anything other than how hard her life is. Behind her, mouths set in permanent unhappy frowns are her two daughters, Marcie, who is Kim's age, and Heather, a year younger. They are both tall and very slim like their dad Patrick, and unlike their mother who is more gummy bear shaped. "Hey, Rose." I proffer. "You okay?"
"Yeah, great" she sniffles, "my friggin' car won't start. We had to wait an hour for shithead to come and get us. I have a miserable cold and the doctor says I have dysphoria. Other than that everything is peachy." By shithead I see she means her ex, Patrick, now slumping through the door.
"Hi, Patrick," I manage feebly, "how are you? It's been a while." Pat lives in Washington State; about as far from his ex-wife and girls as he can get without being overseas. Being a career Army enlisted man, he is often overseas.
"Hey, lovely lady," he purrs, giving me a wet and very inappropriate kiss. Patrick has never been shy about letting everyone know, including my husband, that he has always had the hots for me and if he hadn't gotten finagled into a "shotgun marriage" he definitely would have been my choice for connubial bliss. Which is so far from the truth that I don't have the heart to correct him. I really don't enjoy humiliating people. He heads for the stairs.
"Girls, Kim is upstairs dying to see you. My God, Marcie you are, well, a young woman!" Marcie has, since I last laid eyes upon her, sprouted fairly respectably breasts not to mention some facility with eye shadow and lip-gloss. Kim is almost exactly the same age and is still all knobby knees and flat chest. I know with a sinking heart that there will be discussions on the way back to Vermont about makeup and rules concerning same. They slip their shoulders out of their jackets, designer labels I notice. Dropping them on the floor they step over them without a sign of recognition that I have spoken. They brush by me and go up to the now getting very overcrowded den.
"Marcie, Heather!" Rose barks, "You get down here and pick up these Goddamn coats." Silence from the upper regions. She bends over and gathers them up, moaning as she straightens. " I have to get to the chiropractor soon. My back is killing me!" She tosses the jackets on top of the kidskin ones.
I think to myself, "Maybe if you weren't so damn lazy and got some exercise by, oh say, getting a job, you might not have back problems." I have promised myself to try to have some compassion for Rose. So I mentally take back the last thought and say, "So, how are things? How's your mom? I heard from Martha that she was in the hospital again."
"The doctors can't find what's wrong with her. We think it's her nerves. We are all very high strung."
"Mm" I mumble, wrestling several snappy answers to the ground in my still less than compassionate heart. "Well I promised Martha I would iron the tablecloth. See you in a few."
Before anyone gets the idea that I am just a bitch, I do want to say that actually I have great affection for most of these people and really love them, maybe excluding my father-in-law and Rose. In one to one situations most of them can be fun, funny and good company. But when all the brothers get together in the old family homestead, some chemical reaction is catalyzed and things spin out of control pretty quickly. There have been food fights, a lot of wrestling that gets nasty sometimes, chairs knocked over, that sort of thing. There is a lot of old brother stuff, my husband is the eldest son, but for some reason his folks treat Mike as if he were. This causes resentment and hurt feelings for Don who compensates by drinking too much at every family gathering. My in-law's decision to include Rose puts Patrick in a difficult position and I gather he feels they are being disloyal to him. Mike and Linda are okay, but it is a mistake for us to visit them in the city; they go out of their way to make us feel like hicks. We have them up for cross-country skiing or summer getaways and it works fine.
I reach the top of the stairs and am relieved to see that the den is packed so full of bodies that I can safely slip by and not have to pay my respects. I plop the tablecloth on the set up ironing board and take the iron into the bathroom for some water. Ironing goes without a hitch and I unplug the iron and make it safely back down the stairs unobserved. The dining room table has had all three leaves attached extending it right to the ends of the room in both directions. By my count there will be 15 of us for dinner. Linda and Linda are kind of just hanging around, waiting for the cloth and avoiding the kitchen as long as possible.
"Did she say which dishes she wants?" I ask. There are several possibilities. They go to yard sales and rummage sales compulsively and have, I must admit, scored some pretty good stuff at amazing prices.
"She said the Haviland. Do you know which one that is?" asks vegetarian Linda who is even less worldly about stuff than us Vermont hicks.
"Yeah, it's the pink set up top there. Can you reach it?" Linda is five feet tall.
"Nope, not without a stool."
" I can get it," says cool Linda, who is probably about 5'11". She grabs a stack of dishes and passes them back to us. We start placing them evenly around the sides of the table.
"Martha, what chairs are we adding?" I holler into the kitchen. The dining room set has six chairs so we need some more. There is no response, so I walk in. Rose and Martha are in the pantry, Rose is crying hard and Martha looks panicked. I back out slowly, and go back into the dining room. "Maybe later, Rose is totally melting down."
We three head into the parlor and sit down on the extremely uncomfortable Regency furniture my mother-in-law adores. It is nice to look at but torture for more than a momentary perch. "So Linda" I say, meaning Wyoming vegetarian Linda, "When did you guys get in.?"
"We flew into Logan last night."
"Where are you staying?"
"Same place as these guys, the Holiday Inn in Somerville."
"Cool" I say, thinking that Don will be very upset that no one thought to let us know. We are staying at the Day's Inn in Saugus.
"So, how are things in Laramie. Do you like it there?"
"Yeah, its okay. It's really different than Austin. No music scene that we can discover but, yeah, it's okay."
The front door opens and the last brother, Phil and his wife Naomi walk in, carrying several folding chairs. We three jump up and relieve them of the chairs. "Hello! Happy Thanksgiving!" Phil is the most regular and "normal" of the brothers, although normal in this family doesn't necessarily match anyone else's definition. He is the brother who wears suits and enjoys expatiating about fine wines at length. But at some point during the day we will be treated to verbatim Monty Python routines by Phil and Mike, which would be okay, but they always start correcting each other over a word or phrase and it can get fairly testy. Naomi exchanges hugs with each of us while Phil goes back out for some more chairs. Kim is suddenly at the bottom of the stairs, "Kimmee!" all three sisters-in-law squeal. She is very much petted and adored by her aunts.
She colors a little, basking in the glow of unadulterated love and family pride. After greeting and mugging with the aunts she says to me, "Mum, can I go up the corner with Heather and Marcie for a little while? It's way too crowded upstairs."
"Well, you'd better check with Grandma when we will be sitting down." I have a bad feeling that this is not Kim's idea, confirmed by the arrival of the other two cousins at the foot of the stairs, grabbing their jackets off the railing and charging past us all out the door.
Kim comes back into the hall and says, "She says we have about a half an hour, so can I?"
"Okay, but what's at the corner that's so interesting, and shouldn't they check with their mother before they go?"
Kim leans close and says, "They asked Uncle Pat and he said okay. Mum, he's getting married again. They're really upset. We just want to walk around a little so they can tell me what's going on."
This explains the waterworks in the pantry and I feel badly for Rose and the girls. I'd love to say, "I told you so" to my mother-in-law, but I am much too nice a person for that. It might have been nice for Pat to be able to bring his fiancée with him, but that ain't gonna happen with Rose around. "Okay, but keep track of the time. I don't want to have to come find you. Be back in twenty minutes."
"Bye", she carols, pulling her jacket on as she exits. She nearly runs down Phil struggling with another load of chairs, "Hi Uncle Phil, bye Uncle Phil!"
We all take the chairs from Phil's overloaded hands and bring them into the dining room and place them around the table. With a few spare odd chairs from around the house we will be all set. Phil has made good his escape from the land of working women by this time, and I worry that the beams holding up the second story of the old house are loaded to capacity by the collective weight of male Rolfssons.
We head on into the kitchen to see what we can do to help. Rose seems to have pulled herself together, although she looks pretty puffy around the eyes. She is peeling potatoes; mashed potatoes are practically the national dish of the Rolfsson boys, and the relatively modest amount of garlic potatoes I have brought would be only an appetizer at best. They can go through about five or more pounds at a big family dinner like this one.
"Hi Rose", more or less in unison from the three other sisters-in law. "Hi Martha. What can we do?"
"Hello girls. Well, really we're in good shape. If one of you wants to scare up enough small glasses for pre-dinner wine or whatever, the cheese tarts and vichyssoise will be ready for appetizers in about one minute. Could someone go and dislodge those men from the den? If they want something to munch on they have to come down. I don't deliver."
Now I applaud Martha's new determination to not be pushed around by the men, but in practical terms, if they all come downstairs now and stay, but aren't allowed to sit at the dining room table, we are going to be pretty squished in a minute. They will all tend to remain in the kitchen and they are large men. Nevertheless, Naomi heads for the stairs to sound the hors d'oeuvre alarm.
"Rose," I say, hoping not to be getting into hot water in a minute, "the girls have gone out for a quick walk before dinner. They checked with Pat. And Kim knows to be back when she should. I think it was getting too loud for them up there."
"Oh great, I bet Marcie is meeting that Bobby up there. Pat had no right to tell them it was all right without checking with me. He has pretty much given up any right to say anything about them or to them in my opinion."
"Who's Bobby?"
"Marcie's sneaky hood of a boyfriend. He's at least fifteen and I don't want him hanging around her."
"Oh, God" I think to myself. "What have I done?" Kim is not allowed to go out with boys except in groups; she's only twelve for God's sake. I momentarily consider jumping in the car and going after them. But I take a deep breath and calm down. I trust her to know better than to do anything like getting into a car or anything else that I would have likely done at her age. I know what to worry about because I pulled every stunt in the book when I was young.
Thunder on the stairs lets us know that Naomi has been successful. She pops into the kitchen closely followed by Phil, Pat, Mike, Joe and Don. "Where's your father?" Martha asks.
"He says, he'll have a couple of cheese tarts and a beer up there, please."
"Now Philip, did he really say please?"
"Well, sort of. I'm sure he meant please." Peacemaker is a role these guys know well.
"If your father wants something, he's going to have to come down and get it himself. I am too busy trying to organize a huge meal to cater to him right now."
Suddenly a voice from the top of the stairs… "Martha, did you get my order?"
"This is not a restaurant, Robert and I am not a waitress! You haven't even said hello to your daughters-in law. Come down and pretend to be civilized for a couple of minutes.
"Jesus Christ, a man works hard all week and…" the rest is unintelligible grumbling but judging from the downward direction of the grumbling he is in fact descending the stairs.
"Hello everybody! Happy Thanksgiving!" It's as if he doesn't think we heard any of the last couple of exchanges. He is Fred Friendly, charming and affable. "Hello Natalie, it's so nice you came down. Hi, Linda, Mike tells me you got a promotion. Hello, Linda, good to see you. Hello, Rose." Someday I expect him to get a ring for us to kiss, it always feels like a papal audience when he arrives in the room.
Robert is dressed in a pair of green slacks which look like they fit him last time he weighed 250 pounds. Which is odd, since if he weighs 180 I'd be surprised. He holds them up with a pair of rainbow suspenders left over from the 70's for sure. He most likely obtained them and the pants from the "FREE" pile at a garage sale at the end of the day, when folks are too worn out to be bothered stuffing the left-over trash into a garbage bag. He has on a ratty flannel shirt with a badly frayed collar. It is out at the elbows. I know that he dresses like this to upset Martha and it works every time.
"Oh my God, Robert! What are you wearing? I thought you'd wear that nice shirt and sweater I bought you at Filene's." Martha looks as if she might start to cry.
"I wore the sweater the other day to clean the cellar, (a blatant lie, as I can attest) and I guess it got wrecked. This looks fine. Nobody cares but you anyway, goddamn it."
Martha sighs and gives up, she is working hard to make no waves today. I really appreciate that. "Does everyone have something to drink? There's plenty of vichyssoise if you want more, but we are going to eat pretty soon, so don't fill up!"
"Vichyssoise would be good if you just heated it up." Robert remarks.
"It’s supposed to be cold, it's gourmet." Martha snaps.
"Gourmet! It's cold potato soup for Christ sake."
"Oh, God, somebody stop them," I think wearily, "we're just on the appetizers."
The front door opens and Kim and Heather walk in, looking a little nervous. Rose comes charging into the hall. She yells, "Where is Marcie, Heather?" Where is your sister?"
"Uh, she, uh she'll be here in a minute."
"Where is she? Is she with that Bobby?"
"Well, he was up the corner and we just bumped into him. They're talking is all."
"Patrick, you goddamned better get up there and get her since it's your fault she went out in the first place."
Martha chimes in, "Robert maybe you should take the car and go up and…"
"Stay out of it, Martha. Patrick's got it covered."
Patrick is pulling his jacket on, heading for the door, probably happy to have a chance to get out for a minute even if he will be taking heat for this all afternoon.
Rose tears up again, and pushes through the clump of brothers churning around the kitchen table where the hors d'oeuvres are. She heads for the bathroom upstairs. It's always something with these guys.
Robert loads up a plate with cheese tarts, grabs a bottle of beer from the ice chest and heads into the living-room. "Kim, Heather" he shouts. "Want to watch a video? I have some stuff from the puppet festival." Did I mention he is a puppeteer too?
"Robert, we are going to eat as soon as Patrick gets back. There isn't time to watch a video." Martha says through gritted teeth.
Robert ignores her entirely, and we can hear the music from the puppet festival. The girls don't really seem to want to watch a video, but they obediently troop into the living room.
We women start filling serving dishes from the stove. The rolls are a little burned, Martha forgot she'd put them in to warm, but they're edible. I slide the jellied cranberry sauce out of its can and onto a small oval plate. The relish goes in a pretty cut glass dish that makes it sparkle. The green bean casserole gets its garnish of canned onion rings. Mike uses his sterling silver corkscrew to open the wine they've brought.
The front door opens and Marcie stomps in to the hall looking really pissed off. Patrick follows looking more depressed than he usually does around his family. Rose comes flying down the stairs and grabs Marcie by the shoulders and shakes her. "You know you're not supposed to be seeing Bobby. You knew that Dad would say okay. You're in such trouble!"
Marcie stares at the floor, sullen and silent. Martha calls sweetly "Everyone, come sit down. We're ready to eat."
The guys all surge toward the dining room, you'd think they hadn't eaten in days. The women follow, carrying more serving dishes. Martha goes into the living room to collect the girls. "Robert, could you turn that off. I need you to carve the turkey."
"In a minute. I just want them to see this next part."
"Robert, everyone is at the table waiting. Please!"
"Okay, okay."
Finally everyone is at the table even Marcie who has figured out that no one is going to come beg her to stop standing in the hallway, staring at the floor.
So here we are, the family Rolfsson, except for Grammy Rolfsson, who is not able to leave the nursing home this year. After dinner most of us will try to get over to see her.
Soon we will sit down together, grace will be said, dishes will be passed, some will avoid the cranberry orange relish, some the garlic mashed potatoes and one will have the courage of her beliefs and simply pass the turkey platter to her left. But at a certain point during the meal and it happens every year whether we are with Don's family or mine, there will be a moment, and it may only be a tiny fraction of a minute, when we all realize how lucky we are to have each other and to be connected to something larger than our little family units. All the fussing about the relish or is the turkey too dry will seem irrelevant. The fact that we come back and spend this day with those whom we have, in many ways, left behind will be the important point. And then Phil will start the Spam song, and we will all sing like crazy Vikings, and that too is a part of it all.
It's almost Christmas. Lynn Basil is writing her last book about a secret entrance into the magical doll land of Sha Bebe that she loves so much. Bagannos have taken over the world! Lynn finally meets her dolls in real life. Can she write in a Secret
