There’s a somewhat obscure Christmas movie I grew up with as a kid called Annabelle’s Wish, an animated movie about a little barnyard calf who wants to be one of Santa’s reindeer. It’s a short but heart-warming film narrated by none other than Randy Travis, who sings a song with Beth N. Chapman during a montage portion of the film called “Friends Like Us”. With coffee and creative juices pumping through my head this morning, these lyrics came to mind:
“Seasons come and seasons go, and the world keeps rolling round.
“You’ve got me and I’ve got you, and that’s the sweetest thing we found.”
Mushy and sentimental as they may be, those words were in my brain because times are changing. Thanksgiving was always one of my favorite holidays. We would go to my Aunt Carol’s house in Franklin, TN, which always felt huge as a kid. They had a big bonus room above the garage that served as my Uncle Bill’s study, and me and my cousin Alex would sneak up there to play Spyro the Dragon on their Playstation 1 (I know, I’m dating myself). Getting older, I started to enjoy the more adult pursuits of coffee and sitting on the couch with Papa and Uncle Gary and Uncle Bill to watch the Detroit Lions lose after the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. During lunch, Papa would sit quietly at the head of the table, his shaky hands wielding knife and fork laden with turkey and dressing.
Papa is gone now, and cousins have married and moved away, and the Thanksgiving crowd at Aunt Carol’s has grown small and intimate. Families “wax and wane”, as my Aunt Carol says. I’ve contributed to this change, myself, the past two years, getting involved with my wife and her family. It’s no longer just me I’m making plans with over the holidays. Last year was a 30th birthday trip for my then-fiancé, now-wife, Madison, to Austria and Germany. This year, we spent the holiday with her family near Washington, DC.
A quick tour of DC sights.
My brother and sister-in-law live in Georgetown, a lovely historic neighborhood in DC. We spent the first night and half a day there before heading out into the country where Thanksgiving dinner would actually take place. While in DC, we made a quick trip to the International Spy Museum, peered at the Declaration of Independence, and proceeded to get caught up in the aftermath of the National Guard shooting, unintentionally wandering within three blocks of where it happened. A one-hour e-bike ride later, we escaped back to Georgetown, only to spend another hour in the car to get to Middleburg, VA.
Thankfully, chaos in DC gave way to a bucolic setting in horse country for the next three days. We stayed in an 1807 stone manor house, converted into a vrbo. The house was palatial and drafty, decorated in the finest 18th-century furniture and fox hunting-themed artwork. They had cleverly updated the kitchen and bathrooms while keeping the early-1800s feel, a combination of creaky floors and windows with scenic views. Madison and I were given the option to sleep in either separate twin beds on the 2nd floor or a queen bed tucked into a dormer in a converted attic, only accessible by a sketchy servants’ staircase. We opted for the latter, naturally. It made nighttime bathroom trips interesting, both of us being blind as one-eyed groundhogs without our glasses.
Upstairs in the manor house.
The sitting room.
A view of horse country.
The servants’ stair case
Stairs to the loft.
My brother and sister-in-law, Jordan and Cati, are excellent cooks, and they handled most of the cooking on Thanksgiving day. Jordan was in charge of smoking the turkey on his charcoal grill for several hours. I “helped” him by hanging out with him outside in the frigid Virginia air, keeping the fire pit we stood around fed with fresh wood and smoking cigars. Jordan would get a twinkle in his eye those three days in Middleburg and say, “Jesse, you wanna build a fire?” and off we’d go, just the two of us and a bottle of lighter fluid. My coat still smells like a campfire.
Jordan is in the whiskey business and is quite generous, so he treated everyone to real champagne and rare scotches he’s collected over the years. We sampled his offerings in the kitchen, the countertops strewn with bottles, glasses, pies and other nutritious snack foods. Cati stayed inside where it was warm and wouldn’t smell like smoke, like a sensible person. She and her mom prepped the cranberry sauce and the raviolis, a Cati’s-family Thanksgiving tradition (they’re from Chicago), which were off the wall to the only southerner present, but so very tasty.
The family gathered in the kitchen.
Jordan and Cati’s dog Roz begs for a snack.
A well-smoked turkey
My father-in-law carves the turkey
Instead of Black Friday shopping the next day, the family made the 30-minute drive to the distillery Jordan works at. The biggest draw for me was the collection of ‘80’s and ‘90’s Ferraris the owner of the distillery keeps on the property, including a finicky but sexy Testarossa, one of, if not the first, Ferrari super car. However, we all got to ride in a less-superlative, yet far more reliable ‘87 328 GTS, which looked like a black Magnum P.I. car. Sitting inside it was something special, like being hugged by a fine leather python with knees folded up à la camp chair. Cramped though it was inside, I was tickled pink.
Ferrari 328 pulling out.
Shifting gears in a cramped car.
It was a Thanksgiving like no other, just like the last year wading through mulled wine-sipping tourists in the Christmas markets of Austria. Bitter-sweet thought it may be, traditions change, and I’m okay with it. I’ll always have the memories of Papa’s shaky hands, but now I’m making new ones with the family I’ve been brought into. Every newlywed couple goes through that, I suppose. Regardless of what comes next, raviolis and Ferraris is a pretty good start.