Like many people I know, we had a holiday season that was an anomaly in the History of Celebrations. Much to Cowboy’s dismay, his traditional public Christmas parties were cancelled. Our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner guests dwindled, compared to previous few years; we were distancing from friends who’d been ill, as well as those who work in settings with large populations. I explained the situation to Cowboy multiple times, but he still asked if his best friends could join us. Even after all these months, it’s hard to explain the coronavirus and the world’s situation to him. Often, it’s hard to explain to myself. I wasn’t sure what the holidays would be like for Cowboy; I couldn’t remember the last time, if ever, we celebrated with only the three of us. In our present-day world that sometimes seems darker by the minute, I purposed to think outside the box and determinedly chase joy.
Cowboy was cheered when we learned our neighbors, Vanessa and her Uncle Gilley, would be joining us for our holiday dinners; we’d begun celebrating with Vanessa several years ago. The blessings of this friendship are a hundredfold. Not only is she a dedicated rummy player, she cooks well and enjoys it. And we, in turn, enjoy her company as well as the fruits of her labor. We usually split the cooking duties in half, but for too long, she seemed to make a bigger donation to The Feasts.
"You know how much food Vanessa makes," Mom would say when we started meal planning every November and December.
Indeed. Fruit trays, veggie trays, desserts, sweet potatoes, and, of course, the staple that graces every holiday table with Vanessa present – deviled eggs, at least three dozen. It’s always a welcome chore to help carry food from her house to ours; I volunteer to transport the eggs, and "test" them on the journey. Shhh, don’t tell the others. For years, Vanessa delivered banana caramel pies to us, which I promptly hid in the back of the fridge. It's one of my all-time favorite pies, which is saying a lot because I will love pie of any ilk. Then, three years ago, she introduced us to pumpkin dip served with ginger snaps, a delicacy that should be its own food group. She has greatly contributed to the delinquency of a sugar addict. And she’s tough competition for this so-so cook.
But after our 2020 Thanksgiving meal, I told Flash, "Everything I made this year was great. I've never said that before about my cooking. I'm like Mom - every time one of us complimented her cooking, she'd give 1000 reasons why it didn't turn out as well as she'd hoped." I had to teach the woman how to simply reply with "Thank you." Now I must teach myself.
"It was great," Flash agreed.
And so, I planned a repeat performance for Christmas dinner: two pans of cornbread dressing, fresh cooked cranberries, green beans, gluten-free apple pie, and naked pumpkin pies, i.e. without crusts. It would be a doubleheader in the History of Kim’s Successful Cooking. We decided Flash and Vanessa would both cook turkeys, so we'd have plenty of leftovers; you can never have too much turkey. For days, we’d have turkey sandwiches and my not-so-world-famous turkey soup.
My work started on Christmas Eve morning. I was excited about being in the kitchen, which is perhaps the most astounding Christmas miracle of all time. The words “excited” and “kitchen” have never been in any of my sentences until this writing. With Christmas music on Pandora in the kitchen, I was aflutter, wielding my newfound skills.
I was happy. I was singing. I was enthusiastic, which spread to my affinity for spices. Specifically, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove. As I did on Thanksgiving, I decided to use a drop of clove essential oil instead of ground clove in my pumpkin pies. Because, again, my pies rocked on Thanksgiving. But this time, Cowboy wanted to make the pies. He measured ingredients and mixed up a huge batch of pumpkin pie filling - I quadrupled the recipe, but would pour it into only three pans. My previous pies had been great, but skinny. I needed fatter pies. Of course, more filling meant more clove would be needed. Being the official oil dropper, I added two drops to Cowboy’s mixture. I tasted; there was no clove taste. Oblivious to my need for Oil Math, I added two more drops. Then, Dean Martin or Andy Williams or Burl Ives started crooning, and I sprinkled as I danced. Several drops came out as I tried to count them. I stopped counting at 11 drops, which probably equals at least 1,000,000 cloves. Not merely one drop per can of pumpkin. Not even two drops, which might have been manageable. Simple math told me that my three pies would each have about four drops per pie.
Living in denial, I asked Cowboy to put the pies I the oven, as I hollered to Flash, “I think I put too much clove in the pies.”
“It will be fine,” he replied.
“I don’t think so; it tastes pretty clovey.”
"It will cook out," the armchair chef assured me. I hoped. I even prayed.
But clove, it seems, is stronger than hope. I sliced a piece after it cooled; I had to know before serving the next day. It was awful. A drop of clove is a beautiful thing, but as you add more, it turns to bitterness. As did my sentiments toward my cooking.
Forever my guinea pigs, Cowboy and Flash tasted it. Cowboy devoured it as if nothing were wrong. Flash followed his usual philosophy - "Put whipped cream on it; it'll be great." We have such different pie standards.
So, I called Vanessa over. One taste, and her honestly came forth. "Yes, I would make another one," she replied to my question. She donated pumpkin and coconut milk to my cause, and I made my fourth pumpkin pie. I started following the recipe Vanessa used for her Thanksgiving pie, but thought I’d tweak it a little, changing my ratio of cinnamon to nutmeg. Thankfully, the clove stayed to a minimum, as my eagle eye watched a solitary drop fall from the bottle. It turned out good, but not as good as my Thanksgiving Day pies. My cornbread dressing wasn’t up to par either; due to my spice guilt from the Clove Pies, I took it easy with the poultry seasoning. Which goes against everything I know to be good and pure and noble. You can never have too much poultry seasoning.
I was adrift in a sea of mediocre.
The next morning after our opening gifts, my one cooking chore was to add turkey juice to my dressing and pop it in the oven. Flash took the disgusting stuff that comes out of a turkey and took it to Vanessa’s; she’s our official gravy maker. I can neither make good gravy nor tolerate touching those innards. As for my part of the feast, I was finished.
Then Cowboy reminded me that he wanted apple pie. I hadn’t forgotten; I’d just hoped he had. I’d been trying to lower his sugar intake for weeks, but holidays got in the way. So, like I’d done with the pumpkin pies, I made the apple pie with xylitol. It’s my favorite sugar alternative, and lessens my sugar worry.
Now, dear reader, there’s nothing like your own cooking mania to point out the glaring lethargy of your spouse.
"Babe, you probably need to relax for a while," I hollered at Flash, whose butt had been parked on the couch for the last three hours. "I know putting that turkey in the oven was a big job."
"Yeah. But I got it done."
Slacker Turkey Man.
I was on a tight schedule to get the apple pie in the oven before dinner, so Flash finally dragged himself into the kitchen, nudged out of his nest by the words “apple pie.” Where love fails, gluttony takes over. He and Cowboy washed and cored apples; I peeled. It was an Applepalooza in my kitchen. Cowboy and I altered our recipe, adding a layer of applesauce on top of the gluten-free graham cracker crust. We piled half the apples on top of the pie, and cooked the other half in a second pan, so the apples would cook quicker. After piling all baked apples onto the pie, it was a masterpiece - our best one to date. My clove sins were absolved, and there was peace in the kitchen.
But as Flash unveiled the turkey to start carving it, something seemed amiss.
“What’s wrong with it? Why does it look like that? Is it okay?” I asked in true machine-gun fashion. “Is it dried out?”
“No, it tastes okay,” he replied, as we both stared down at Clark Griswold’s Christmas Vacation turkey.
“Is it upside down?” I continued.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“You don’t know?” I continued my interrogation.
“I don’t remember. I flipped it.”
He’d flipped the bird. A crude but effective way to ensure all the meat spent plenty of time in its own juice.
After lunch, we played games. We left the covered turkey out to cool before storing it in the fridge. Later, as Flash and I walked into the kitchen, we smelled a funky odor. Since it wasn’t emanating from either of us, we thought something in the fridge from the week before had spoiled. We rummaged around, but found nothing. I put the turkey in the fridge. Late that night, I was ready for cold turkey sandwich. As I started to carve more meat, I saw red juice in the bottom of the pan.
“Flash,” I yelled, “I don’t think all of this turkey was done. Or something was wrong with it before it was cooked. This bird stinks.” And nothing stinks like a rotten bird.
Suddenly, visions of trips to the ER for food poisoning danced through my head. Ugh. It was my worst nightmare. No turkey sandwiches. No turkey soup. And possibly, no tomorrow.
“Are we going to be okay?” I asked.
Dr. Lindquist replied, “Well, we’re not throwing up or anything.”
I was glad Vanessa and Gilley had brought some of their own turkey; it’s not polite to kill your neighbors on Christmas. The turkey was thrown out, along with my hopes for sandwiches and soup.
“We’ll get another one, and cook it next week,” I consoled myself.
Before going to bed, Cowboy resumed questioning about his annual New Year’s Eve party with friends. But we couldn’t in good conscience do it this time, for the same reasons we didn’t have his friends over for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“Mom and Dad can be fun,” I tried to reassure him. But parent fun is a far cry from friend fun when you’re 22. And so, the challenge was on. I’d have to hype it up to make it a success; it wouldn’t be hard, since New Year’s Eve is my favorite night of the year. We started planning first things first – the menu. With each addition, Cowboy seemed to be more excited.
“Spinach dip,” he added to the list. The boy could live off spinach dip. Since he eats dairy-free, we concocted a recipe a few months ago: Frozen spinach, warmed up and drained; mayo; garlic powder; and onion powder or fresh cut onions. It’s Chef Cowboy’s specialty, and Flash and I are lucky to get a couple of tablespoons each. Of course, Cowboy’s parties aren’t complete without taquitos, salsa, and chips. To top it off, I made points with Cowboy when I told him he could bake brownies. They were fresh out of the oven by 11 a.m. on December 31, so I still had a whole day of anticipation to fill.
“Let’s decorate,” I suggested. We grabbed the Party Box out of the closet, and Cowboy hung our “Countdown to Midnight” banner over the kitchen door. We set out hats, blowers, and noisemakers; things were looking festive. Cowboy selected CDs he wanted to play throughout the night, and we tried out our new karaoke microphones Flash bought us for Christmas. Cowboy loves karaoke, smiling as he sings in his own way.
“Cowboy, we have to figure out how to get music and words on the TV so we can all see them.” YouTube came to the rescue; we were singing by 1 p.m. It was turning out to be our earliest New Year’s Eve party ever. When Flash came home that evening, serious celebrating began. We danced in the living room, Cowboy showing off his new moves. He selected Monopoly to play, which he’d learned on Christmas, and dramatically beat us again. I was delighted. His father, on the other hand, was not so gracious; he was out to win.
After games, our inaugural Lindquist Karaoke Night was in full swing for the next two hours. Flash, a non-singer in front of others, shocked me by joining in. It may have been my whining that did it. Or maybe the stink eye I gave him as I whispered, “I’ve worked to make this night fun for Cowboy; I need some help.” Truth be told, Cowboy was happily singing; it was I who needed Flash’s humor. He makes everything more fun.
When Flash began singing falsetto – a memory that’s eternally etched in my mind – I loved him even more, and we laughed until it hurt. Our rendition of “What’s Up?” by 4 Non Blondes was epic; we’ve found our public karaoke song. I don’t know how I’ll get him to do it, but he needn’t worry about receiving the Most Humiliating Award of All Time. No, I won that award in November, when I wiped out on the Arctic Slide at Moody Gardens in Galveston. My first time down was flawless; I’d been down that slide every holiday season. But on my second turn, my sled turned sideways as I sped down that sheet-metal monolith. I pulled on the rope, which did nothing but make my body tip backwards. When I hit that Astroturf at the bottom, I was flung to my stomach and my body spun 180 degrees as the sled flew over my head. In some kind of physics phenomenon, I hit both sides of my face. My only thought was, “Dear God, please don’t let these expensive glasses get broken.” It was the biggest face plant of my life. All the other kids were fine if their plastic sleds turned sideways; they bounced right up. Show-offs. My little mishap brought the loudest crowd groan of my life, as the slide attendant ran over and exclaimed, “Are you okay?” I tried to mask with humor, replying, “Wow, that was quite a wipeout. And I didn’t even drink beforehand.” Tests revealed no concussion, no fractures, but one heck of a case of whiplash. And my loving husband recorded the entire incident on his phone; he’s great in emergency situations.
In many ways, obviously, it was one of our most memorable holiday seasons. Wonderful, generous people replaced cancelled parties with drive-through ones, so Cowboy was able to add some familiarity back into his Christmas. This particular season, with its weirdness and missing traditions and faux pas incidents, came when we needed it most. We were more present with each other, more attentive to each other’s conversations, and more bonded, even during this quite turbulent time in history. Our time together helped combat my missing Mom and Dad more than previous Christmases, and missing my brother, Doc, so much it weighed heavily on my mind. Being separated from my family of origin, by death as well as by many miles, I’d been feeling alone. When Doc and my sister-in-law, Elly May, showed up at our house a few days after Christmas, that was one of my best gifts all year. And Cowboy’s, too; he’d also been longing to see them for months.
The holidays brought many gifts, most intangible, just when we needed them most. Above all, they brought joy. But I didn’t have to chase it down, hunting it like an elusive reward. And I couldn’t create it; I’m not that powerful. No, joy was already here, a gift waiting to reveal itself to me in a thousand little moments. All I had to do was unwrap it, and thank the Giver. Every single day.