A Greek Style Thanksgiving 2004

“Happy Sanksgiving! Happy Sankgiving!” That’s what my Yiayia would holler out at us at the top of her lungs as she stood by the front door, looking down at us and wondering how she could possibly fit all of these people into her home for that special American holiday… Thanksgiving. All of my family; parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and even friends would slowly walk up the stairs laughing at Yiayia’s accent and wondering what culinary surprises awaited us inside. Ah…Thanksgiving at Yiayia and Papu’s house, what a treat! As I walked up to my Yiayia at the top of the stairs I gave her a kiss and admired her festive outfit that consisted of a red comona (robe) and green pandofles (slippers)…JESUS, what a sight! She looked like an elderly, white haired, overgrown elf that smelled like garlic! Even as child I knew that being Greek would slightly change this important American holiday that celebrates the gathering of family and friends, I just didn’t realize what a complete rewrite my Grandparents were going to make.

I think that anyone who makes the effort to get together with family for a holiday like Thanksgiving, envisions a Norman Rockwell like setting. What comes to mind is the famous Norman Rockwell family portrait on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post magazine of years past. This painting depicts a HUGE family, ALL of whom are sitting together at the same table. In this rendering, we see the children with their eyes opened wide with excitement and the adults looking on in amazement, admiring all of the various traditional Thanksgiving food stuffs that are piled high on the dinning room table: stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, corn, peas, butter beans, fresh milk biscuits, cranberry sauce and of course the finishing jewel that sits at the head of the table, ready to be carved, is a twenty-eight pound turkey. The turkey is golden- brown and steaming hot for it just came from the kitchen oven…wow, what a sight. Truly, this depicts the American traditional family setting for Thanksgiving…or does it?

My recollection of Thanksgiving ala Greek Style looked NOTHING like that quaint Norman Rockwell painting! Let me tell you how it really was and is!

You first walk into Yiayia and Papu’s house holding a big casserole dish of something you can’t describe, and it smells like hell. I’m pretty sure that if I took a peak under the tinfoil that covered the dish, there would have been something that was slaughtered the night before and its head pointing up and its eyes looking at me! As soon as you walk in the house, you must, like every Greek I know, walk into the kitchen (it’s a law) just to check out what food was cooked, and to drop this heavy casserole dish of food that you wouldn’t eat if you life depended on it! In the kitchen was my aunt who was crying because her sister, my other aunt, wasn’t coming to Thanksgiving dinner unless my uncle apologized for something he did while Carter was president, or something like that, you can never get the whole story!!! As I walk out of the kitchen to avoid the tears I bump into Papu who is wearing nothing more than his boxers and he’s looking for his teeth. There is screaming coming from the downstairs den from my younger cousins and a baby is crying somewhere in the house. For a moment I pondered and decided to go back into the kitchen of tears, who knows, I just might find out some gossip about my one uncle! While in the kitchen I decided to take a peak at the various foods we where about to eat for our Thanksgiving feast, and there it was: two roast legs of lamb, mousaka, pastitsio, dolmathes, spanakopita, tiriopita, stuffed calamarakia, calamata olives and feta cheese…Oh boy! I thought to myself, wow, JUST LIKE THE PILGRIMS! Except for that stuff I brought in the big casserole dish, I don’t even think the Pilgrims would’ve eaten that stuff.

Well, as time has passed and we waited as long as we could for all of the late relatives, it was time to eat this typical Thanksgiving feast. But wait, what about the seating arrangements? Okay, all of the adults go into the dinning room and grab a chair and sit at the “adult big table.” The kids, whose age can range from 50 to 7, have to eat at the kitchen table. Now for those kids who are between the age of 35 to 50 and are upset about not being able to eat at the “adult big table,” let me just say this…GET OVER IT!! It’s not meant to be. And to be quite honest, if your family members live to be into their 90’s, lets’ just say that you’re screwed!!!

Now, let’s not forget those individuals who didn’t even make to the kids table. I refer to those people as the stragglers, those who came late or perhaps they just took their time coming from the downstairs den from watching the Thanksgiving Day football game, for those people, they get to use the Greek traditional TV foldout tables. I always thought those people who ate off those small wobbly tables that date back to the Truman Presidency, had to be contortionist just to keep their balance while trying to sit on the sofa and eat at the same time.

DING DONG! The door bell rang, can you believe that we actually had a family member who came LATE! I know…hard to believe such a thing!
It was my Thea Maria, my Fathers sister, who had the nerve to show up two hours late! I answered the door and saw her sanding there holding a covered casserole dish. Then BANG, she started with the excuses in her Greek/English broken accent;
“If you could see the traffic and then the snow, like a blizzard it came and then the rain along with the freezing ice…”
I interrupted her and said,
“But Thea, you live next door!”

Ahh…Thanksgiving ala Greek Style! I wonder if Norman Rockwell could’ve ever captured the traditional Greek-style Thanksgiving that we Greeks are all familiar with on canvas! Hell, I don’t think that there’s a canvas big enough to capture a Greek Thanksgiving or what it was truly like…
“Growing Up Greek In America”

Happy Sanksgiving!!!

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