I Am Done with Thanksgiving

I think I'm done with Thanksgiving.

Well, not with the holiday, but with preparing mounds of food. This year I bought an 11-pound smoked turkey. All I had to do was heat it for a couple of hours, and prepare some side dishes.

I had planned to have the big meal for lunch, but rather than turkey, I fixed a pizza. The turkey didn't get cooked until early evening. None of the side dishes got prepared. Even the fresh green beans I had steamed a couple of days previously remained in the refrigerator. Once dinner was over, I cut the meat off the turkey, put the carcass (or as much as would fit) into my slow cooker to make some stock, and washed the dishes that couldn't go into the dish washer. 

Gone are the days when I would make stuffing, gravy and mashed potatoes from scratch. Gravy now comes in a jar, stuffing in a box and mashed potatoes in another box. I don't prepare or buy a dessert either. Cooking for one isn't worth the effort any more. 

A few of my online friends commented that they went out for their Thanksgiving meal, or got burgers to go. I'm not much of a burger person, but I think next year I will scout out some local restaurants that are open on Thanksgiving. Or maybe I will attend the free Thanksgiving meal provided by a local food pantry. I volunteered at the pantry for a couple of years, and I enjoyed working a shift as a server at the holiday meal on two occasions. It's open to everyone -- the homeless, those who don't want to or who are unable to cook, anybody who is alone on Thanksgiving. So that is a possibility. Or maybe I will go away for the holiday to someplace warm.

I'm not, of course, giving up on the idea of counting my blessings and being thankful for all I have. Those are things that should be part of our lives every day. Thanksgiving has lost so much of its uniqueness over the years. Now it is little more than a speed bump during the mad rush to find "the perfect gift."

So just maybe the time has come to give up on the idea of cooking a lot of food just for myself. Several years ago, I drastically reduced the amount of baking I do for the holidays. Since I retired, I have no one at work with whom to share the fudge and several kinds of cookies I used to make. And I haven't prepared a big meal for Christmas day for a few years.

I refuse to subject myself to hordes of pushing, shoving, noisy people at the mall as they search for "the perfect gift." I pick up things for a friend in another state as I come across them during the year, but otherwise I have no one for whom to shop. So I focus on the real spirit of the season, of donating to those less fortunate. And of course, I continue to enjoy listening to my close to 50 CDs of Christmas music.  

We'll see how I feel about cooking next Thanksgiving, but after so many years I think it's time to simplify the day and focus instead on feeling grateful for what I have.