Nontraditional Traditional Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving Les decided he wanted to do a traditional turkey dinner.

From November 2010

In the six Thanksgivings we've been together this has never been brought up before. While we were in Utah we always had Thanksgiving with our families. In Washington we ate with our neighbors or worked, sometimes both. But I think moving across the country and not knowing anyone is making Les homesick, even if he doesn't realize it.

I found it odd because we are not traditional people, certainly not by the standards Les is used to. We lived together before we got married, when we did get married it was in a courthouse and it was performed by (GASP!) a woman and I kept my last name. In fact our wedding was so nontraditional we didn't even get a gravy boat, as a result we had to pour our gravy out of a measuring cup on this, our first traditional Thanksgiving. We don't have kids, we aren't going to either. We don't go to church on Sunday (or any other day of the week for that matter). Completely nontraditional.

Even though this was a traditional turkey dinner Thanksgiving (for just the two of us we had a 10-lb. turkey, rolls, cranberry sauce, peas, green beans, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, mashed sweet potatoes, olives, fudge brownie cheesecake and pumpkin sandwich cookies), Les did all the cooking.

From November 2010

I don't cook and I don't touch dead birds, even if they have been previously plucked and frozen. While Les was cooking I took pictures, drank rum and enjoyed a Star Trek TNG marathon on BBC America.

Before we even started the big day I found it interesting that Les, who has the big traditional family with their close ties, called his mother to ask the best way to cook the turkey. They talked for approximately 5 minutes all told and she told him to read his cookbook. So I called my nontraditional dad, the man who raised two kids on his own, yes a man. He and his wife (married a year after Les and I were) talked me through every step of cooking the turkey which I then relayed to Les. Then my dad and I talked about all kinds of stuff until my phone started to die, it was almost an hour. Les's mother couldn't talk when he called her because he had interrupted her knitting of mittens. I wonder if maybe she would have been more helpful if I had called her asking for cooking advice, as is my womanly duty.

From November 2010