Thanksgiving Week

 

This Thanksgiving will have a different form.  I've been alone before.  During my medical school years, I lived far from everyone else.  A classmate who observed kashrut would arrange a caterer to make dinner for his extended family and include me, though when he departed for a year in Israel, that invitation no longer came.  I made a turkey tv dinner from Sol & Ely's Kosher Butcher.  My aunt who usually made the family dinner would mail me some edible, though ironically via my mother's will which my uncle actually wrote, they were in fact stealing from me at the time.  As a resident and newlywed, I would try to make it to my in-laws for their dinner, succeeding two years of three, linked to a scheduled week's vacation.  

Thanksgiving, alone or amid family, always marked a landmark on my calendar.  School would suspend for a long weekend.  As a college student, I could take a bus or train to my father's house while those attending college from farther away stayed on campus.  Because of the extended weekend, and therefore classes earlier in the week underattended as some kids had to take a day or two off to travel with their families, those classes earlier in the week were often a review or catchup of less intensity than the rest of the semester.  One set of exams had been completed.  Pre-college midterms were a way off, college finals loomed with a few study breaks incorporated into that class free hiatus.

While Thanksgiving Day marked the apex, it was really a week's change in direction.  Returning home from college meant friends at other colleges also returned to their homes.  Old friends usually found a way to get together, usually informally.  We didn't think of college or pro athletes having the same entitlement to time off.  Some collegiate leagues had completed their schedules but others were making their final push for a bowl invitation or preparing for a bowl already secured.  Pros scrambled for league position, We watched on TV as they played.  For those with a yard, we were expected to pitch in with leaf disposal.  And those dinners would have extended families in attendance with somebody else preparing the meal.

Time brought me to adulthood, more responsibility.  Since I covered the hospitals for Christmas, I could count on Thanksgiving Day or even the extended weekend off from my medical duties.  Now I had the house, children in school with their Thanksgiving schedules, leaves to rake but for a long time dinner deferred to other people, though driving to the dinner assigned to me.  I worked pretty hard, the early days of the week just as intensely as any other work days, meaning I could use as much recreation as a few days away from work would allow.  It was not always that way.  Eventually as the children became adults, the generations turned over, and geography took its toll, Thanksgiving week changed.  Somebody could be paid to do the leaves.  I had taken a liking to cooking elaborate dinners so I became the caterer, transporting dinner to my in-laws.  Eventually it made more sense for people to come to me, which they did, though fewer of them as people became less willing to travel or ideological differences became unacceptable animosities.  I still watched football.  And the time remained more of a week with days of preparation, execution, and anticlimax of dishwashing and shabbos which always followed.

With some pandemic reality, I am back to my medical school and residency days, just me with my wife.  One child has his new family to absorb him as my in-laws absorbed me.  The other opted for the safe route, staying on America's other coast.  One regular guest decided to adhere to her state's Coronavirus control restrictions and stay home. But I'm still the caterer who thinks of this time more of a week than a day.

It's still a week delineated by a day.  Food acquisition early in the week, preparation with enjoyment Thursday, dishwashing and shabbos Friday and Saturday.  Indifferent to football as the teams have their own coronavirus restrictions which has detracted from level of performance for most and from hype for everyone.  Leaves again contracted out.  Osher Institute on intercession with no anticipation of return after the week concludes.  Less festive for sure.