and While We're on the Subject...

My sister reminded me of our most memorable family holiday meal (and oddly one of our favorites), albeit not aThanksgiving.

It goes something like this.

My father died In November,1983, less than 1 week before Thanksgiving. We had a simple Thanksgiving that year,if at all, and had planned on a simple, Family Christmas . My brother, in his wisdom, decided not to bring his family out, then my brother in law, who was not on the top of the list of pilots for his airline, was directed to fly on Christmas...

Not to be put off, we decided to just put off the entire holiday until my brother in law got back. My niece was three and not quite as tuned in to the entire holiday traditions., and none of us were exactly in a celebratory mood. No problem.

except...

We woke up on Christmas and looked around and realized that, between the two of us ( that meant my sister and I), we had NOTHING to eat of substance. Some cereal... probably some canned stuff... but everything important was frozen or waiting for Bob to return. To add to this revelation, we realized that all the markets were closed. I mean NOTHING TO EAT...

Now, coincidentally, my local pub was owned by a wonderful man who was originally from the midwest. I say this because this bar (and restaurant) had a very large population of people he knew and their friends and ... well... a lot of 'Holiday Orphans", so to speak.

So every year he had an Orphan's Thanksgiving and Christmas. LOADS of food (after all, he had a kitchen right there). Turkey, Ham, stuffing, veggies.. all the fixin's and more. People who had no family out here would come in droves.

So we took Mom to the Shellback Tavern for Christmas dinner.

It was magic.

The food was great. The company even better. Everyone knew why we were there, and they all kept her talking and laughing and involved and cheerful. It wasn't "our" Christmas, which kept it from reminding us at every turn that Dad wasn't there. It was warm and pretty darned terrific.

and we got one of Mom's all time endearing lines..

as she stood there, picking up her plate of food, she quipped "My husband has been dead less than a month, and here I am in a bread line for Christmas!".


The ocean, reflected in the Shellback window..