Stuffed From Stuffing

It is the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Sound of the washing machine on rinse is fighting with the television which boasts a marching band and a football announcer. I am stuffed. I'm sure I've gained at least 5 pounds over the last 3 days. A Thanksgiving tradition. My cousin Julie sent me a Facebook message today about the movie we used to rent and how things aren't the same on Turkey Day now that we no longer spend it all together. For as many years as I can remember, my family would pile into the car (once a Brown Datsun and eventually a blue Suburban replete with my father's bluegrass tape collection) and drive from Main Line Philadelphia to Garden City, Long Island for the last Thursday in November. The traffic would always be horrendous on that Wednesday (after a half-day of school) but we'd push through it, finally arriving sometime around 9 or 10, stop at the liquor store to pick up a case of wine, scotch and beer, and arrive at my Aunt Maggie's and Uncle John's on Euston Road -- just in time for her sausage-with-red-sauce sandwiches.

Early the next day, on Thanksgiving, we'd all run in the Turkey Trot (the 1 kilometer "fun run" or the 5k-er), often still hung-over from the night before. At the end of the run, we'd speed walk/limp back to Aunt Maggie's or Aunt Nora's (who lived blocks away on Brixton) -- and upon our arrival -- the consumption would begin. Running the trot was the perfect excuse for a guiltless day and night-long feast between the two houses. An afternoon filled with yummy hors d'oeuvres at Aunt Nora's (a 5 layer dip, homemade chocolate chip cookies, cheese, crackers, shrimp cocktail, bloody marys, mimosas, beers -- and this was all before the 5 course meal spread out between the adult and kids table).

I remember hanging out on the third floor in Julie's room, listening to Madonna and Billy Joel on cassette and singing along to "Holiday." Julie and I are months apart and grew up as playmates. We shared vacations together; she came with us to Fischer's Island and Cape Cod, I went with her to tennis camp, the Poconos and The Hamptons. We acted like sisters and fought like sisters, too -- though it was rare that we disagreed. I told Julie about the Facts of Life as we sat between two twin beds wrapping presents for all of the belated birthdays and milestones that got celebrated on Friday night after dinner. Most of the presents were bought that very same Black Friday, and Julie and I were given the onerous task of wrapping the coveted goods (except when something was for us - these parcels usually stayed deep within my Aunt Maggie's closet -- but this didn't stop us from snooping). I don't remember the exact details of what I divulged concerning the Birds and the Bees, but Julie objected vehemently: "your parents may have done that, but I know mine didn't." Her sense of calm unnerved me. I insisted I was right, and compared her cockamamie story of babies getting delivered by Storks -- to the myth of Santa Claus. "Santa Claus is REAL," my cousin Julie insisted -- but I noticed the slightest look of doubt in her eye. I moved in for the kill, chuckling about the man with the white beard and the red suit with all those reindeer. "But I've SEEN him!" she pleaded. "That was not Santa Claus," I said. "That was your Dad, dressed as Santa. Big difference." The truth was slowly dawning on her about Santa, not to mention the Birds and the Bees. By the end of the holiday weekend, Julie’s parents (and therefore my own) discovered that I had spilled the beans about sex and Santa. I was punished for my disclosures and recognized the power that information could have – curious to know what other secrets the adult world had in store.

Julie and my other cousins and I also had a movie tradition that continued for at least 3-4 years: we'd rent the 1980’sDisney flick starring Bette Davis called WATCHER IN THE WOODS. It was kind of scary, especially for Disney, and somehow, it became a ritual that was almost as exciting as stopping at the 7-Eleven down the street on the way back from the video store. We'd hit up Uncle John or my Dad Lester for a couple bucks and leave the “Sev” with Twizzlers, jolly rancher sticks, bottle caps and Slurpies. One year, after we'd watched WATCHER IN THE WOODS in the basement of Aunt Maggie's (right around the time the basement got redone) -- the adults began to watch JAGGED EDGE upstairs. Unbenounced to them, the movie played automatically on the downstairs TV set, and my cousins and I (all of us 8-years old or younger) watched the violent suspense thriller, as if in fact, like Jeff Bridges' character, we were getting away with murder. I remember hearing the gasps and yelps from the adults upstairs as they sipped their wine in front of the fire. I felt as though I knew what it was like to be an adult, watching what they were watching, following the story that was meant for them -- not us.

Friday after Thanksgiving was another serious tradition that required the strange and somehow American combination of Discipline and Gluttony: Shopping. My Aunt Cathy (who lives in Fairfield, CT) and my Aunt Nora (the one who lives on Brixton) were the youngest of my Aunts and always seemed to be the early-bird ring leaders. Plans would be made the night before on wine stained lips about what time we'd depart, but rarely was everyone ready when Nora and Cathy ever-so-lightly beeped the horn in the driveway at 7AM, prepared to go all day with their turkey sandwiches in plastic baggies tucked into their purses for midday fortification. My Aunts are serious bargain hunters -- but then so is my Mother and the rest of her Sisters. I, too, have a knack for finding deals -- but whether this is a genetic trait or simply something I learned at the knee of my Aunts over a decade of Thanksgiving shopping trips -- remains a mystery.

We'd start at Bloomingdale's and Macy's and soon after move to Talbot's. I remember the big finds usually happening at TJ Maxx, Marshalls and Loehmann's -- or perhaps it was trying things on at Loehmann's that made such and early and lasting impression on me. The dressing rooms at Loehmann’s are communal; they consist of one big square filled with mirrors on all sides with hooks for clothes and benches and at the center, clothing racks. I remember being shocked to discover that some women didn't wear underwear beneath their stockings. I also remember being self-conscious about my overweight and pubescent body as I tried on dresses and slacks amidst the clatter of women who all had one thing in common (besides cellulite or the morbid fear of getting it): they all wanted to find a deal.

Yesterday, Chris read a headline about a 34-year old worker killed in Long Island when the doors opened to a throng of eager shoppers at the local Walmart. The crowd, eager for their deals, trampled the man to death. Could this be the same place I learned to shop alongside my female cousins, Sister, Mother and Aunts – all those Black Fridays in the 80’s and early 90’s? The question seems as bleak and depressing as learning that Santa Claus doesn’t really exist and that a bird with a long beak and formidable gullet is not responsible for delivering soft, baby-powdered bundles swaddled in kerchiefs of cotton on the doorsteps of expectant parents. Then again, Walmart didn’t exist when we used to go to Long Island for Thanksgiving. What I wouldn’t give to be there again, pulling into the driveway on Euston Road, the lights of the kitchen a glow and the promise of the weekend’s festivities and traditions – before me.