Butzbach Family earns top honors in Thanksgiving awards
I’m quite certain that at this time of year it’s difficult for the discerning eater/socializer to find the ideal Thanksgiving dinner. Reviewers have just begun posting their thoughts on particular Thanksgivings, each advocating a different one to the reader. Let me go on record right now as saying that the Thanksgiving dinner I attended a week ago was without question the best Thanksgiving ever. If you only attend one Thanksgiving this year, you simply must make it the Thanksgiving dinner my family held last week.
Allow me to be frank for a moment: there is a lot of luck when it comes to pulling off the perfect holiday gathering. We all remember Christmas Eve 1998 when a fight between my mother and grandmother conspired to ruin the holiday season. Only by chance did my aunt give to my father as a gift a trivia book which engrossed the family for the entire night and caused our memories of in-law antagonism to fade. How can we forget my uncle’s ham-fisted attempts at humor nearly spoiling the Fourth of July 2001, only to be negated by the timely arrival of fireworks which awed all members of my clan, young and old? For all the platitudes that I’m about to bestow on Thanksgiving 2007, luck played as big a role as the individual members present.
Disaster almost struck when hors d’ouevres were brought out. My aunt and uncle had brought Italian peppers stuffed with provolone and prosciutta that my uncle’s late father had been so fond of. However, they had been removed from the olive oil they generally were packaged with, causing the provolone to become soft. As my cousin and uncle argued over whether the cheese was rotten or simply not provolone (and wouldn’t that be an affront to traditional Italian hors d’ouevery!), I anticipated a premature failing of this Thanksgiving. Fortunately, another uncle soon arrived with some sort of Swedish meatballs which he maintained were German. My family silently enjoyed the delicious appetizer, savoring the averted disaster and my uncle’s amusing assumption that my father would know how to pronounce the German name for the meatballs he had made. My dad doesn’t know shit about German. He isn’t a Nazi, after all.
Libations were soon made available to all present, save my cousins who were under the age of sixteen. In years past, it was a sizable gaff on the part of the hosts to not allow college-aged but under twenty-one year olds alcoholic consumption. This led to many a dark and sardonic conversation behind the backs of drunk adults in regards to their tight grip on the bottles of Ketel One Vodka and Pinot Noir. With all but the youngest members of my family sufficiently intoxicated, we were able to forgo fantasies of an anarcho-syndicalist youth revolution. Nobody wants that on Thanksgiving.
One of my family’s strengths going into Thanksgiving (as noted by many commentators making preliminary analyses) was food. Though never innovative or experimental, the large size of the family and the differing Caucasian ethnicities in my family guaranteed a lively selection. Though the green beans were simply steamed, rather than drenched in butter and bacon as was often my aunt’s modus operandi, the squash and pumpkin pudding put our Food Total Index Meter well over 87 points. You really can’t ask for more, can you?
Many commentators thought that the nicotine addiction which has some members of my family in its hold would cost us the title this year. However, quick thinking on the part of my father saved the day. By lighting the portable fire pit on the deck, smokers were no longer relegated to solitude as the party continued indoors. Indeed, they seemed to hold court on the deck, leading and adding to conversation on topics as diverse as the Red Sox, good butcher shops at which to purchase a turkey, and the progression of my grandmother’s senility and dimensia.
Dinner conversation almost turned ugly. The topic quickly pivoted from which local grocery chain was the best to the favorite stand-up comedian of all members present. My father’s opening salvo was more of a conversation starter than anything, as he fondly recalled seeing Don Rickles perform live at the Warwick Musical Theater sometime in the 1970’s. That guy, my father maintained, was hilarious. Soon, my mother remarked that Robin Williams was the best. My father was quick to support her. As my uncharacteristically (in my family) liberal aunt proclaimed an affection for the work of Bill Maher, I silently noted the dearth of funny conservatives. As I considered injecting this tasty nugget of controversy upon my mostly Republican family, I could almost sense a premature glare emanating from my mother, who disdains political discourse during meals. Instead, I feebly sought to interject with my belief that Eddie Izzard was, indeed, wicked fucking funny. If not for the receptivity of my uncle’s (girl?)friend, I may have lost the entire match on behalf of my family. Instead, my near-error was transformed into an inside-the-park grand slam (so to speak, of course. This isn’t fucking baseball. This is thanksgiving).
In fact, my occasional absences from the primary action of Thanksgiving may have been integral to the success of the day. Rather than allowing my face to collapse into a frown after too many hours of forcing a smile and nodding while my father decried all labor unions and my uncle sought to convince of their worth, I often surreptitiously slipped away to my room to read from a collection of essays by Kurt Vonnegut. Distracted from talk of my cousin’s aspirations to work for a fashion designer by the words of the Pride of Indianapolis (You’re right, Kurt! Gore Vidal does seem to want credit for wearing three piece suits, rather than his literary contributions! Haha!), I was able to better prepare myself for further confrontations from grandmothers, young cousins, and drunken aunts and uncles.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my family. But sometimes, they don’t focus on the goal of winning Thanksgiving. Don’t they want it to be the best ever? Don’t they care about the title? A few years ago, when my parents implemented the inspired plan of combining Thanksgiving on each side of the family, commentators scoffed. But, like the Celtics, my family has bought its way into becoming a powerhouse and perennial Thanksgiving contender. We may never win Christmas awards, and our main strength is in lower-level Memorial Day competitions, but this year, I really felt like we could take Thanksgiving!
That, of course, is for history to decide. I can only advocate that any reader still searching for a Thanksgiving to have attended last week considers my family’s. Certainly, we may drink a lot. Certainly, there may be Irish, Swedish, German, Italian and Armenian people present. And most assuredly, some small child will ask where our dog who died last year is. But we succeed in spite of those things, not because of them. And isn’t that what Thanksgiving is all about?
Thanksgiving Review by Alex Butzbach
