This Fish Needs A Bicycle

this home for the holiday

Perhaps because I spent college living on scholarship and bookstore wages, too poor to travel home for the holidays, the idea of being without family at Thanksgiving isn't so terrible to me. The distance from my family being what it has been (and even more so now that 7 of us are scattered among 4 states), I have always found surrogate families subbing in where mine could not be.

One year, I spent the holiday on a potato farm in Idaho learning to snow mobile; and one in upstate Maine, tucked under homemade quilts and having my first tofurkey. Two years ago, there was my boyfriend, David, and a houseful of 30-something homesick Irish who spent the evening teaching me ballads and drinking songs (followed by my very first visit to New York City). Last year on Turkey Day, J's mother gave me a seat at the kid's table, a very dry martini and yet another reason to be attached to a ridiculously tricky boy.

This year, though, Thanksgiving will be pretty quiet. A girlfriend, Roommate, a roasted chicken and some apple pie. There won't be any kid's table, after-dinner touch football, or left-over turkey sandwiches. (I really can't justify making a big ole turkey for three people -- can I?). Friday morning, we'll pack up the car, head down to Connecticut and sit in a friend's new cafe eating baked goods and drinking hot cocoa. With whipped cream. And maybe, if I'm very charming and my powers of persuasion are up to par, we'll be rounding out the trip with a viewing of the Christmas tree in Rockefellar Center. And ice skating. Please let them take me ice skating. I promise to be extra graceful and not fall down lots.

My friends are such a wonderful surrogate family and I'm truthfully pretty thrilled to be the one in charge putting out the spread. I love being the hostess (I actually have a string of pearls, kitten heels and a Donna Reed-esque dress -- shall I wear them?). And I love being in the kitchen when it's all warm and the windows are steamy. And I especially love hearing my roommate say, "Woman, you're too good!"

Because he's absolutely right.