By CB Adams

We live in selfish times.

We were originally writing this to be a diatribe about the profound disappointment we feel about certain portions of our family. Part of us still wants to vent that spleen, unpack their actions and motivations— and give the proverbially dirty laundry a thorough airing out. We can’t avoid thinking of the current state of our family’s Thanksgiving as akin to the Black Knight’s “tis but a scratch” scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Members of our small family have been hacking away at this family’s tradition (see turkey wing above) for several years. Yet we continued to think of those amputations as just scratches. That’s on us. Cue Depeche Mode’s “Wrong.”

But who, other than ourselves, would want to read that diatribe? Our cooler collective heads have prevailed, even though we are still committed to exploring the (what seems like sudden death) current state of the Snob Hill Thanksgiving. We must embrace the end of one set of Thanksgiving traditions and expectations as well as the unknown contours of the holiday in the future. Yes, we are already thinking ahead because it may very well take at least a year to decide how we will celebrate. To define the ultimate Snob Hill Thanksgiving takes time and attention. We sweat the details.

It is our belief that Thanksgiving is a single day, as opposed to that following holiday — the quanchrismukkah that has bloatedly become an entire season (nay, fourth quarter) of the year. We remember when the word “season” was reserved for the natural progressions of nature’s calendar. We further believe that in the single Thanksgiving day, our efforts should be on gathering and gratitude. But, because it is a single day, there’s a certain pressure upon it that other celebrations do not encounter.

This year, more than half of our already small-and-shrinking family seceded from the established family traditions. They avoided the celebration that we’ve hosted for more than 30 years and left us feeling disrespected, abandoned and hallowed out. We can’t control the actions of others, and we know full well that expectations are just resentments waiting to explode. Hence, our original impulse to rant and rave King Learishly. Or Sally Brownish in the Charlie Brown Christmas: “All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share.”

Part of us, still does. We want to wave the metaphorical finger (middle and otherwise) at those family insurrectionists who created the loss in our Thanksgiving. But we won’t because the situation now (and next year and the next and so on), just is. We are not without an understanding of — and a sympathy for — the pressures that family expectations exert on the holidays — especially with the so-called ‘blended families’ of which we are members. Choosing one side of the family over another is a Sophie’s choice (if you don’t understand that analogy, read the book or at least watch the movie), and it sucks for the side that’s left on the platform.

We won’t live in the past (even though Thanksgiving has always seemed about trying to preserve at least something of the past, at least the past’s tradition). Isn’t the past not even really past (to bastardize from Faulkner)? We have not arrived at this juncture without precedence. Our Mother lamented the slow-and-then-all-of-a-sudden dissolution of the family Thanksgiving for many years before she passed. As we discussed the family dynamics, she used almost the exact same words as Sally Brown — all she wanted for our family was our fair share. That share, of course, is defined differently for each contingent within the family. We live in selfish times, after all.

The New Thanksgiving will not be judged by number. It may the American Way, but bigger is no longer better. We liked adding extra leafs to the dining table, squeezing in an extra, mismatched chair or two to accommodate our family and guests. But the Snob Hill Thanksgiving reboot, Part Deux, 2.0 will be better (curated?) by being smaller. That’s our choice in these selfish times.

We, along with Mother, noticed a couple of the youngins in our family attended some of our past celebrations stoned because we assumed that was the only they could “get through” the holiday. We find this an odd reaction (other than the usual callowness of youth) because our Thanksgivings were almost always completely drama free. These under-the-influencers contributed to the disruption of our notion of family, but we believe in attraction rather than promotion (or obligation). If you don’t want to gather at the Snob Hill Thanksgiving, or you have to get stoned to endure it, then perhaps best to decline the invitation.

We will acknowledge our own younger days and the copious amount of alcohol we consumed. Is that so different than cannabis? Perhaps not. But in those days, almost everyone partook of the ole John Barleycorn and our own consumption was based not on “getting through” the day but…well, any excuse to overindulge was good enough. That, plus drinking at someone else’s expense was always attractive too.

In recent years, some have even come, sat at the table, declined to eat because they had another table to attend, then left. If that’s the level of attraction we can elicit, then absence is indeed a better option.

Sad.

As we (and our family) have aged and parents/grandparents have passed away, the Norman Rockwelllian, Currier & Ives-ish, ideal of Thanksgiving has become outdated and unrealistic — much as we valiantly fought to maintain it. That ideal is no longer sustainable (if it ever was), at least in our family. We have great memories of Thanksgivings past, and those can’t be taken away or tarnished. If anything, in the light of the future parameters of this family’s Thanksgivings, those memories will be ever more brightly burnished. That famous Rockwell is at best a hoped-for ideal, an ideal that could probably never have been achieved.

We tried.

We liked trying.

But we are done trying.

And that is okay. It has to be. Our family is not alone in this downsizing. We do not understand, nor do we condone, the idea that in order to create a new tradition, you must kill the old. The half of this family that seceded are pursuing their own ideal Thanksgiving. We wish them well, knowing they could very well find themselves in our situation sometime in the future. We wish them well dealing with that disappointment, should it come.

As we contemplate the future Snob Hill Thanksgivings, we will continue to focus on quality (certainly no longer quantity). We want to share with those who nurture our souls and the spirit of the day. To those others bound to us by family ties, we can’t help but cue up that old Electric Light Orchestra song “Don’t Bring Me Down.”

We live in selfish times…we probably always have.

And so we lean on the words to “Let It Fall” by Over the Rhine:

…Whatever we've lost
I think we're gonna let it go
Let it fall
Like snow
'Cause rain and leaves
And snow and tears and stars
And that's not all my friend
They all fall with confidence and grace
So let it fall, let it fall…