It's 5 in the morning. It's a few days post Thanksgiving. The Hawkeyes won. I shopped.
(I shopped for boots....even better.) This year, I smiled with my husband as we found such joy in having all of our four sons around the Thanksgiving table. We smiled and found such joy in having our giant Labradoodle and three cats under the Thanksgiving table.
All during dinner giant and tiny chunks of turkey seemed to disappear in an instant from the kids' plates. They've always done this and we've always laughed about it only now they know that we know. It was this Thanksgiving moment of everyone being finally big enough to admit it. Admit it? Admit What? Ok, we admit it.....only a few of our kids even like turkey at Thanksgiving and for years turkey has been disappearing under the table :)
One likes pie, well loves pie. One likes Lasagna, sweet potatoes and pie. One likes everything so much that he has a 2nd dinner before bed and another upon waking, including turkey. One is somewhat vegetarian, well trying to be, and has a vegan girlfriend. I'm always worried about my weight and for two days before and three days after just want green smoothies, walks, the gyms and to avoid eating. My husband is just chill. He just smiles at everyone's strangeness and shakes his head and eats whatever he wants to eat. He was the one human in the house who went to the gym earlier that day, for like hours. I was doing my annual Good Morning Gratitude radio show. Then cooking started. It felt like we made a little bit of everything to account for whatever people would love and one giant turkey for the animals.
Now, two days before Thanksgiving, I was contacted by my modeling agency. I had been chosen by a crew to be in a shoot for Village Candle. I said yes, and so the day before Thanksgiving, when I would normally be cooking everything, I was in Kennebunk for the day modeling. For the shoot, I had a daughter and a dog (Lizzy and Lou).
We got to talking about Thanksgiving and how we were all on set and not cooking. The photographer mentioned he was mostly vegan. I stopped, knowing all the love for turkey in my own house, and asked what he eats for Thanksgiving. You know, baffled I asked, "If not turkey, then what? What else could their possibly be?" types of questions.
He said TOFURKEY. I instantly asked him to repeat himself as that was new to me and he said it again: TOFURKEY. I believe he then began muttering about how he didn't really like it, he was trying to be vegetarian and I think he was secretly wishing for turkey. I probably should have offered up ours. Anyway...
I came home armed with a new word: Tofurkey. So when some of our kids, who I know don't love turkey, asked what we were having for Thanksgiving, I of course went with my joking serious can carry a joke self and said with a very straight and excited face: TOFURKEY. (Now, this isn't one of those blogs with hidden advertising for TOFURKEY, don't worry. I guess it could be at this point, but it isn't.)
Now, I had to google this. I admit it. I even learned I was spelling it wrong!! I'll correct that for the rest of this writing...
You should have seen the looks on their faces! Cries of protest rang through the house. I'm pretty sure a door slammed. Kids went to the phones to google what that even was and when they saw it, they freaked. "OMG Dad are we really having TOFURKY?????" "What? Mom's not making pie??" I was asked to repeat myself like four times.
The joke lasted about 30 minutes until my son and his girlfriend arrived. I tested the word on my oldest son's girlfriend and oldest son and they knew what it was and played along. TOFURKY feast in the making..... I think I actually heard sobbing that we weren't having turkey this year. I'm pretty sure the dog was pissed too. Cats will eat anything, so I'm not sure they cared. The internet seems to care. Our house freaked.
The joke carried on for a bit until everyone, pretty irritated, was collectively on their phones sitting in the living room googling it and someone finally said "Ha Ha Mom, Good One"
and so it went...
Our Thanksgiving tradition....
with turkey and lasagna and green bean casserole and stuffing and corn bread and more stuffing and don't forget the dinner rolls and pie and more pie and black olives and potatoes and well basically anything and everything but TOFURKEY. Not even a salad dare to venture near the table.
ahhhhh the power of #Gratitude. I even heard "Hashtag Gratitude Mom"
and everyone ate, even those tapping on legs under the table with their little paws.
(and no offense to TOFURKY or TOFURKY lovers out there. We hear it's pretty good and we'll try it out. Just not today.)
(tryptophan'd dog)