Chapter 5. A Holiday with Us

A holiday at grandma’s house always included soup, either vegetable or rival. Then there was either turkey or ham, with mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, and pies. One thing you may not have heard of is Halva, which Uncle Leonard said was made of “horse milk and sawdust”. You either loved it or hated it there was no in between. I loved it, especially the marbled kind. Another thing you should know is that if you ever left a family gathering and were hungry, it was your own fault.

We love to cook. Everyone would have an assigned dish to make, but rarely did someone come in with just one dish. There was always some recipe that they just had to tryout. This was a good thing, not just because it meant we got to try new things, but also because there was rarely only the family there. The kids ate first, when you stopped being a kid was arbitrary, but generally it was before age 12. Then the men, then the women. It was not sexist, it was necessary.

Everyone was welcome at Grandma’s table, boyfriends, girlfriends, just friends, and relatives of all kinds. Even though she was my mother’s mother, I would bet that almost everyone of my father’s side of the family ate there at some point. One year my cousin, Carsa, brought her friend and his two cousins. They were made to feel welcome.

            The acceptance was not just of different people. When someone found out they had an allergy or medical condition, accommodations were made.  Smoking was limited to the deck after one of the kids was diagnosed with an allergy. When a food allergy was discovered, special pains were taken to either keep the allergen out, or to let the person know that it was in the dish and to stay away.

After dinner it was time for games. There is always at least one game of Pinochle going on, most of us learned to play by age 12. But there are dice games and matching games and marble games. There was also the stereotypical scene in the living room of the men sprawled out watching some kind of sporting event.

The day did not end with dinner. Most of us are there long enough to eat supper as well, warming up leftovers and taking requests from whoever says “Hey, can you grab me some too”. They holiday might not end until it is creeping close to midnight, when rides are offered to those who imbibed a bit too freely in holiday cheer.