I have never had a sit-down, gather around the table, Martha Stewart-style Thanksgiving.  Growing up, our house was wall-to-wall people on Thanksgiving Day.  Along with our family of six, we were joined by grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, in-laws, and friends.  Sometimes there would be a sailor newly stationed in San Diego, or wives and families of sailors on deployment who were alone for the holiday.  My parents would welcome them in.  It was always a crowd, and there was always enough food for everyone.

We did not have a tablescape, fancy dishes or linens.  There were no taper candles set burning in the middle of a lovely centerpiece.  We did not gather around the table and share what we were thankful for as they do in most holiday movies.  There would never be a table large enough to accommodate all the family and friends brought together at my parents’ Thanksgiving.

Our Thanksgivings were loud and raucous.  Kids ran in and out of the house, dogs barked, conversations swirled, and everything was punctuated by laughs or shouts at the football game on television.  The commotion heightened the energy in the house, and no one was exempt from feeling the joy of the holiday.

The women darted around the steaming hot kitchen, loading and unloading the oven with side dishes on the top rack, while the turkey sat, fat and superior on the bottom rack, taking its time roasting to a golden brown.  The women were goofy from the relentless activity and labors of dinner prep, and teased each other constantly, their laughter rising above the din.  My Aunt Marilyn was the loudest, with a cackle that made everyone else laugh to the point of crying.   Occasionally, my mother, or another mother, would shout, “Get out of the kitchen!” at kids coming in to tattle or whine for attention.  I don’t know why children feel the need to interrupt adult activity with pressing information like, “Randy keeps untying my shoes,” but I know we certainly did.  Randy is my cousin, and he loved driving me crazy.

The men sat in front of our small television in the den, engrossed in whatever game was on. Now and then their ears would perk at something happening in the kitchen.  What’s so funny in there?

If my dad heard us being shooed from the kitchen more than once, he’d yell from the couch, “You heard your mother, get out of the damn kitchen before I have to come in there.”  He only had to say it once, and he never had to get up before we left the kitchen, heads hung low and defeated. So unfair!

One year, my brother, Kelly, Randy, my sisters, Tracy and Connie, and a kid from next door decided that if we were going to be banished, we’d punish our parents by hiding in a bedroom closet.  Randy’s idea. We imagined them looking everywhere, inside, outside, calling neighbors, frantic with worry.  When all seemed lost, we would casually reappear and they would all be so relieved that we would own the day.

It felt like we were in my parents’ cramped closet for hours, knee-to-knee, elbow-to-elbow, whispering, waiting, when in fact it was probably all of ten minutes.

“Do you think our moms will cry?  I asked, giddy with the drama of it all.

We listened.  No one cried out in fear, “Where are our children! Where can they be?” No tears. No tramping from room to room, panicked and searching…searching.  Nothing.  Except my little sisters bawling to get out of the closet.  We let them go with a warning NOT TO TELL.

Eventually, we heard my mother shout, “Kids, get washed up!  Dinner’s ready!”  This may have been the time to sit tight and wait to see if anyone came looking, but we were hungry and shot from the closet, gangly and tangled.

When it was time to eat, all the food was spread across the table.  My Dad carved the turkey with an electric knife on a cutting board that pulled out from the kitchen counter.  He wasn’t meticulous, but he was fast.  When the turkey was ready and positioned at the center of the spread, everyone formed a line around the table and filled their plates, buffet-style.  We ate wherever we could find a place:  dining room, living room, den, standing in the kitchen, or outside at the picnic table.  We ate, and talked, and laughed, and went back for seconds.  No one ate alone.  After dinner, we bemoaned the fullness of our bellies while we heaped extra whipped cream on top of pie.  The men and boys flopped like beached sea lions in front of a flickering television.  The women poured coffee and relaxed before pitching in to do the dishes. 

One year, the kitchen drain clogged up just as all the scraped, dirty dishes  went into the sink. My dad stuck his hand in the drain and came up with a mushy wad of semi-ground potato peels. He plunged the drain repeatedly and ran a snake through the pipe to no avail. He stood back, sweating and cursing.  “Not gonna work,” he said.  “We have to call a plumber on Monday.”  My dad would not pay holiday or weekend rates.

My mother would not tolerate having dirty dishes sitting for days, so she improvised.  She filled two buckets from the garage; one with soapy water and the other with hot water and placed them together on the dining table.  Everyone had a job.  Dip, wash.  Dip, rinse.  Dry. Dump dirty water outside and refill the soapy bucket in the bathtub.  Set hot water on the stove to boil and refill the rinse bucket.  Dip, wash.  Dip, rinse.  Dry. And so it went until every dish was done.  As annoying and inconvenient as all of this was, no one grumbled.  My family has always been able to find humor in almost anything.

After my dad passed away, my mother continued the tradition of loud, crowded, crazy Thanksgivings.  As she got older, my sisters and I stepped in to do the cooking and clean up.  She would sit in her recliner, watching us bustle about, laughing, talking, teasing each other as she had when we were small.  Her eyes followed her grandchildren and great grandchildren as they ran through the house and the small kitchen, being shooed away by her grown daughters who used to be shooed away by her.

My husband, Ron, and I now live in the house where so many of these big Thanksgivings took place.  We remodeled the house, and the kitchen is much larger.  The first year Ron and I hosted, we had 24 people over.  I stood at the kitchen island, stirring butter into the mashed potatoes and catching pieces of the many conversations going on around me.  My brother, Kelly, sat across from me, munching on chips and dip. 

I said, “I hope this all goes well.  I mean…I’m not Mom.”   

“Yeah, you are,” he said.  “Like it or not, you’re sorta Mom now.” 

I thought about it.  He’s right, I guess.  As the oldest child and living in the home that was always the gathering place, I suppose it’s my legacy, along with my siblings, to keep Thanksgiving for our kids and grandkids the way it was when we were growing up. 

I pulled the turkey out of the oven and placed it on the kitchen island to rest.  My sisters and I pulled foil from the side dishes and arranged them around the turkey.  I poured wine while my brother carved the turkey. 

I called to everyone inside the house and out in the yard, “The turkey’s done, let’s eat!”

 24 people formed a line and scooped up their meals, buffet-style, then found places to sit and eat and talk and laugh and then go back for seconds.  Kids ran in and out while the football game blared from our huge TV in the den.  In our house, we do not sit at a beautifully decorated table.  We carry on the tradition of bringing people together, making it fun, taking time for hugs and laughs and teasing and everything we learned about what makes the holidays special.  It is a legacy passed down to us from our parents, who loved sharing them with friends and family, and anyone who needed a place to come for the holidays.  My brother tells me I’m in my mother’s shoes now.  I like to think that she sees me and approves; that aside from changing the green bean casserole recipe, she believes I’m doing just fine.