‘But there was more than enough to go around’
Sigh. It’s been a little over a week since we bade good-bye to Thanksgiving and waved a reluctant hello to the Christmas season. Which, god help us, seems to be getting earlier every year. Not to get all Scrooge-like, but I like to polish off the turkey leftovers before decking my halls. (Which I do, but sparingly. See “Deck the Halls with Bough of Holly” for minimalistic deets.)
No, this wasn’t this year’s turkey, as famously introduced in “Flipping the Bird”. But. trust me, it looked much the same. As did my outfit
This year we didn’t actually have any leftovers. Even though this year’s turkey was a whopping 23 pounds — oddly enough, just about the same weight as Mr. Baby — by Saturday there was nothing left but bones. (Mr. Turkey’s, not Mr. Baby’s.)
Mr. Baby en route from SF, settling in with some inflight reading
Speaking of Mr. Baby (um, which I do a lot), he and his parents were our special guests again this year, along with Grownup Besties Jim and Phyllis. (Yes, that Jim and Phyllis, of “Caterwauling in the Catskills” fame.)
Mr. Baby hangs with Jim and Grampa
We rounded out our festive table with some local relations varying in age from a few months to a few years…over 70.
We had more than one little turkey at the table this year
We “did” the dinner and the pies and the games and, next day, the hiking and the demolishing of whatever meager leftovers were left. (No sweet potatoes or brussels sprouts; just a wee bit of stuffing and gravy and a few shreds of turkey.)
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- Picking up a few pool cues
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- Picking up a few chess pointers. (As well as the pieces)
This year’s hike was cut short by cold-baby-fussiness, and almost ended in a movie-worthy tragedy. “Hey! The quickest way back to the cars is to walk on the railroad tracks,” yelled Dude Man over Mr. Baby’s increasingly desperate cries. To be fair, we have “shortcutted” on the tracks many times, since there are so few trains and you can usually hear them coming a mile away. But this time a train rounded the curve right in front of us — it was too windy to hear its clackety-clack and the engineer didn’t see us in time to sound the whistle — and almost eliminated our branch of the Whitmore Clan in one fell swoop. We were able to leap, Butch Cassidy-like, from the tracks to avoid getting smashed to smithereens, but it was a call that was definitely too close for comfort.
Another hike, this time on the beach. Where we did not run into any trains
Except for nearly getting wiped off the face of the earth, this Thanksgiving ranked right up there with the best. As I’ve said in many a post, in my humble opinion Thanksgiving beats Christmas by the gravy boatload. No cards, no gifts (well, maybe some wine), no decorations, and, best of all, no carols. (Who wants to hear “Little Drumstick Boy” on endless repeat?)
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- Something that can be enjoyed on endless repeat…
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- …chair gymnastics with Grampa
As for Christmas, we are somewhat resigned to the fact that Thanksgiving will be “ours”, while Christmas will be claimed by the the Saskatoon Clan. It seems only fair, since there are scads of them. The Other Grampa has two brothers and three sisters, which means, for Mr. Baby, many aunts and uncles to spoil him and many cousins with which to create mayhem.
In the meantime, speaking of Christmas, we’ve got this year’s card nailed:
Amagansett, New York. December 2025
