Thanksgiving, or as we knew it best way back then, "Turkey Day", was the beginning of the "holiday season". To kids this meant it was about one month left to be good until Christmas.
The center of the day was my grandmother's kitchen, the busiest place in the house. The smells and the sights were only the beginning of the orgy we knew as the Thanksgiving feast. The bird was the center of the meal. No frozen, prepackaged gobbler with Stove Top Dressing. The main course was fresh and wrapped in white butcher's paper. The stuffing was started several days ahead when bread was pulled into small pieces, enough to fill the large roasting pan, and left to dry out. Mouth-watering pumpkin and minced meat pies were baked and cooling on the long kitchen table. While the peeled potatoes were soaking in water ready to be mashed and smothered in giblet gravy. Fresh cranberries were rinsed and soon to be cooked and fashioned into salad and topped with Nanny's home-made pineapple sauce. Then there was the marshmallow-topped yams and Waldorf salad. Yum...even now one salivates thinking of those wonderful meals.
Our windows were tastefully decorated with mimeographed pictures of pilgrims, Indians, and autumn leaves colored with good old Crayolas(basic colors, at that) and the hand-traced turkeys that we had been making at school as we learned about that first Thanksgiving.
Beds were made up for my uncle and aunt from Rainelle, WV and his two little girls who would make the long trip up state (pre-interstate highways). Other family would file in just in time for the football games.
The Christmas parades on TV were exciting, even in black and white and were the only programs my sister and I were interested in that day. Following the parade the living room was
dominated by the guys and football. The women shooed the kids out of the kitchen so they wouldn't be "in-the-way". It was usually warm enough to don coats and mittens and play tag with the cousins or rake huge piles of crunchy leaves and gleefully take turns jumping into them. The smell of wood-burning in fireplaces in the chilly air still brings back to mind those November afternoons.
Finally there was that anticipated call from mom to come in...dinner was ready! This is one time there was no dawdling when you were called for dinner. Walking into that warm kitchen , rosy-cheeked from the cold and the outdoor activity, we were greeted by the delectable odors of the Thanksgiving meal. Baked yeast-raised rolls, percolated coffee, turkey and dressing and pumpkin pie made up the mixture of smells that we nostalgically remember as the "turkey day" meal.
When the family gathered around the table and we bowed our heads in prayer we were truly thankful for the wonderful meal shared with cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents, and siblings.
Even today as many of the places around the table have long been empty, the thoughts of the holiday center around the good food and loving family. Thanksgiving is a true American celebration. Again whatever neighborhood, be it Woodsdale, Elm Grove, Triadelphia, South Wheeling or more....America in the 50s and 60s...a wonderful place and time to be a "kid". Have a "Happy Turkey Day."
