Sunthing Special

One of the things I don’t like about the holidays is the feeling that everyone’s having a Norman Rockwell kind of event but you. At the very least, the norm for Thanksgiving includes a home-cooked turkey dinner “with all the fixings”, as they say. But is a home-cooked meal at Mom’s or Grandma’s with the family all gathered around really the norm? Let’s see. My neighbor ate a spinach quiche alone in her room at a rehab center. A couple of my family members helped out at a food kitchen in Cleveland, grabbing something to eat when they finished their shift. My family ate pizza for lunch at the Rhino Cafe at the Cincinnati Zoo, and dinner at a Cracker Barrel off 71. (My husband wanted to eat at Golden Corral, but I told him I refused to eat Thanksgiving Dinner at a place that had the word “corral” in it). And if McDonald’s, Wendy’s or other fast food restaurants along the highway would have been open, a lot of travelers would have been eating there, judging by the large number of cars waiting in vain at drive-thrus or trying to open locked dining room doors (we know, we were among them). We did order the the turkey dinner with all the fixings when we were at Cracker Barrel — so at least we got that part of the tradition right. More importantly, we reflected on all we’re thankful for — which is the heart of it all anyway, isn’t it? And last I checked, you didn’t need a home-cooked meal around Grandma’s hearth to do that.