Thanksgiving 2023

 

Well, here we are, about to celebrate another joyous Thanksgiving in 2023. It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating Thanksgiving, 2022. It certainly doesn't feel like 400+ years since we celebrated that first Thanksgiving in Plymouth.

Time just flies when there's turkey and stuffing involved.

So much has happened since last Thanksgiving, it's hard to know where to begin. Let's leave aside Trump's five indictments and examine the infamous Stockton Springs Thanksgiving of 2022. Warning: this is a painful event to revisit.

Faithful (and most likely bored) readers will recall that in August of 2022 Nan, aka TLOTH (The Lady of Two Harbors) purchased a lovely townhouse in the village of Stockton Springs, Maine. You couldn't find a more perfect Maine summer getaway if you tried. Sitting atop a 150 foot cliff overlooking mighty Penobscot Bay, the townhouse spoke to Nan's generous heart.

"You should come here in November for Thanksgiving," the townhouse urged.

"Don't listen to him," I pleaded.

"Yes. A lovely traditional New England Thanksgiving. Oh how precious it would be," mused TLOTH, as she pictured all the usual Hallmark Thanksgiving movie scenes, including a surprise visit by several high-ranking members of the local Penobscot tribe bearing live lobsters and the sad carcass of a deer recently hit by a truck over in Searsport.

Thus was spawned the infamous 2022 Thanksgiving from Hell.

Not to brag, but I had a strong inkling that our first Maine Thanksgiving would be..ummm..challenging. After all I had spent every Thanksgiving from 1947 through 2010 in New England. During every one of those 63 Thanksgivings, my overriding feeling was "Man, I'm cold. Is the heat on? Is the firewood dry? Is the front door open?" I knew that Nan, despite the years she spent in Park City, Utah, would not be truly prepared for the kind of cold that awaited her in Stockton Springs, Maine. A Maine cold is, well, different. Dry ice goes to Maine to cool off. In Maine a cold stare is anyone looking at anything. And toward the end of November, the rain in Maine falls sideways...in both directions! 

I just knew that Nan, a Tallahassee native who has spent most of her life in Florida, would be shocked when she discovered that during a Maine Thanksgiving it's so cold your hair hurts and your fingers go on strike. You need to ask someone to put your hat on for you because you have no feeling in your hands. Or your head for that matter.

And just as I feared, when Nan left the warmth of our heated rental car to turn the knob of our inviting front door in Stockton Springs, Maine, her bare hand instantly froze to the handle. Nan was now officially part of the community. Heck she was part of the townhouse.

We weren't willing to wait for the Annual July Thaw so there were only two ways to free Nan's hand from the front door. One way required a locksmith and a surgeon; the other way involved some boiling water. We opted for the latter and Thanksgiving 2022 had begun.

There was some screaming.

For most folks Thanksgiving is about family, food, football, food, and dessert. In Maine it's no different and we were looking forward to all the above. We had some of our wonderful family arriving from Weymouth, we had turkey and the usual fixin's arrayed on the dining room table, we had a full lineup of football games on the ol' Samsung. Everything was going according to plan...until dessert.

I had volunteered to make several pies for dessert. I consider myself a master baker. Back in August, Texas buddy Cris had graciously tutored me in the art of making and baking of a perfect blueberry pie. And what could be more Maine-ish than a blueberry pie? There are blueberries everywhere in Maine. They grow in fields and forests. Even through the cracks in the sidewalk. I would take my newly discovered skill and provide perfectly baked blueberry pies for everyone's dessert.

There was a hitch, however. I couldn't find the recipe on my phone. Back in August, Cris had very carefully written out each ingredient and each step. I had cleverly taken a picture of his directions. Now, I couldn't find that picture. But I had promised the assemblage homemade blueberry pies and a Thanksgiving promise is no small thing.

I would have to bake the pies from memory. After all, I had baked the pies in August, just three months earlier. Surely I could remember the simple directions over just three months time.

 

I forgot the blueberries.

I baked a perfect top and bottom of a pie with nothing in between except corn starch, sugar, cinnamon and allspice.

The generous scoop of vanilla ice cream made it palatable. 

Between Nan's frozen hand, my empty sad pie, and the unsavory removal of the donated deer carcass, it was pretty far removed from a Hallmark movie Thanksgiving.

This November, 2023, we'll be celebrating in Destin, on TLOTH's other harbor. 

Nan's hand has healed nicely. 

We've invited a group of Seminoles to join us.

The pie will be key lime.

Ain't life grand!