I imagine that just about everyone has, at some time, gone to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. And many of us have been that grandma who spent days baking, shopping, ironing table linens, gathering enough chairs, putting together centerpieces and wondering if the children will eat the stuffing if they know there are oysters in it, and will anyone notice if she uses instant mashed potatoes instead of the real thing. (Probably not, if there is plenty of rich gravy.)
Most of us started out being seated at the “children’s table” which was often a wobbly card table, or the kitchen table moved into a corner of the dining room for the occasion. When we graduated to the “big” table, we quite possibly had to settle for a folding chair or the piano stool, but at least we didn’t have to put up with all those “baby” cousins who ate with their fingers and spilled things.
Things were a lot more interesting at the adults’ table; there seemed to be a lot more bowls and platters and they were passed around so you could help yourself to as much as you wanted instead of having your mother bring you a plate, she had fixed for you. You could turn down the squash and green beans and have unlimited soft, warm rolls dripping with butter and grape jelly. You could sample strange things like stuffed mushrooms, beet pickles, olives stuffed with anchovies and chunks of fish in wine sauce – and if you didn’t like it, you could leave it on your plate, and nobody scolded you. You could drink strawberry pop from a wine glass instead of that tumbler of milk they had at the kids’ table and put extra whipped cream on your pumpkin pie.
You didn’t always understand all the things the adults talked about while they ate, and you sometimes puzzled over jokes the uncles told, but it was heady stuff being treated like an adult and having the aunts ask questions about school and friends and actually listen to what you said. Graduating to the big table didn’t always depend on age; it seemed to depend more on just how much room there was there and how crowded the children’s table had gotten.
I had three bachelor uncles who didn’t know beans about young girls, and I could always count on one or more of them asking me the usual questions – how old was I, what grade was I in at school, and what did I want to be when I grew up. I sometimes wondered why they couldn’t figure out that the first two answers were just one more than they had been last year. I guessed they didn’t care enough to remember, and I was tempted to give them some outrageous numbers in reply, just to see their reaction. If, when I was eight, I’d said I was in high school, they’d have roared with laughter and everybody would have looked at me and I’d have been embarrassed, so I never dared to do it. I tried to be honest and serious about my choice of a career, though. I didn’t really want to be a nurse, like so many little girls claimed, and while I expected to someday be a mother, that wasn’t exactly a career choice, so my replies varied over the years. At times I wanted to be a figure skater like Sonja Henie, a singer and movie star like Judy Garland, a ballerina, a teacher like Mrs. Johnson from second grade or an artist like Norman Rockwell.
One year, I coveted a paper doll of my older sister’s. She had refused permission for me to even touch any of the hundred or more tempting items. “Glamour Girl” was unlike the movie star paper dolls that were popular at the time. This was about fashion and glamour and included dozens of beautiful outfits, sportswear, evening gowns, beachwear, wigs, purses and other accessories. “I want to be a glamour girl,” I declared when asked the inevitable question. My uncle considered my short, plump, awkward little self and burst into laughter. Everyone looked at me and I wanted to hide under the table. By the next Thanksgiving, I’d definitely decided I wanted to be a teacher and make sure that dolts like him knew how to talk to little girls and learned not to laugh at the dreams of serious young ladies.