MOM LORI: Mom doesn't want to make turkey for Thanksgiving this year.
POP GARRY: What does she want to make instead? I hope it's not sushi.
MOM LORI: No. She doesn't want to cook at all.
POP GARRY: Why not? Is she mad at someone?
MOM LORI: No. She's just tired. Forty-five years of making Thanksgiving has done her in. She's cooked her last goose.
POP GARRY: I don't blame her. It's a hard meal to make. I never understood how she got those marshmallows to melt on the yams anyway.
MOM LORI: So we need to make a decision. Who should make our family's Thanksgiving dinner?
POP GARRY: What about you? You're the oldest child.
MOM LORI: I live in a teeny tiny condo. There are 13 of us now. Too big for my condo.
POP GARRY: Then why don't we split up?
MOM LORI: Split up? But dad … it's Thanksgiving. We can't split up.
POP GARRY: Who says just because it is a holiday that we should stick together like sardines?
MOM LORI: It's an important family tradition. And it's one of the few we have left.
POP GARRY: What about Hawaii? We all go to Hawaii for Christmas every year.
MOM LORI: That's great, but it is not the same. We get macadamia nuts in our stockings and Santa comes in a canoe. It's confusing for the little kids. There's no chimney. It's not very traditional.
POP GARRY: But we make it fun. I remember when we first went to Hawaii we were surprised at how expensive room service was. But Mom didn't want the hotel staff to see us bringing in food. So she would go the supermarket carrying her Louis Vuitton duffle. She'd buy groceries, put them in her duffle and proceed to carry them back through the hotel lobby as if everything was perfectly normal. Nobody bothered her. A family tradition is whatever you want it to be. For us, it was Fruit Loops in Louis Vuitton luggage.
MOM LORI: I remember we used to always go to Carmel for Easter, too.
POP GARRY: We'd hide the Easter eggs inside the Cypress trees but we wouldn't find them all. Sometimes people would find them and complain to Mayor Clint Eastwood that the trees smelled like eggs.
MOM LORI: Do you have any memories of your own family traditions in the Bronx?
POP GARRY: We all drank Pepsi and milk. And my mom said Penny's overbite was so bad she could open up a Pepsi bottle with her teeth.
MOM LORI: That is so mean. But what was a Bronx Thanksgiving like?
POP GARRY: My mom would always cook, but my dad didn't like turkey. So sometimes she would also make spaghetti for him. Only she never had time to simmer the pasta sauce, so she just put ketchup on the noodles and said it was sauce. Some of us ate the traditional turkey and some of us went for the spaghetti. It was years before I realized that Heinz didn't make marinara sauce.
MOM LORI: But I have memories of your dad carving a turkey at our house.
POP GARRY: He always carved when I was growing up and for a while he carved at our house when you were growing up. But when you were a little kid, it was dangerous because he usually drank three martinis before he turned on the electric knife. It became quite a mess all over the kitchen. Pretty soon your mother took over the carving duties.
MOM LORI: But aside from food, what traditions did you have as a family when you were growing up?
POP GARRY: My mom used to pull us out of school on Wednesday afternoons to go and see Broadway theater. The matinee tickets were cheaper.
MOM LORI: Did you get in trouble for missing school?
POP GARRY: My mom said seeing Mary Martin in South Pacific was more useful than algebra.
MOM LORI: True. But I think family traditions should be maintained. As for Thanksgiving, someone should always make the turkey and there should always be pumpkin pie.
POP GARRY: I didn't like the pumpkin pie the year that we hired the caterer for Thanksgiving at your brother's house. It was some kind of fancy pumpkin pie mousse and it tasted like aspic.
MOM LORI: What is aspic anyway?
POP GARRY: Something too fancy for me. It upset my stomach.
MOM LORI: I think what upset your stomach was the bill from the caterer.
POP GARRY: Don't remind me. I miss those cheap Louis Vuitton meals in Hawaii. Hold on. I have a new idea.
MOM LORI: What?
POP GARRY: We'll go out to a restaurant for Thanksgiving.
MOM LORI: Noooooooo way.
POP GARRY: Why not? We had Thanksgiving in Paris that one time when we were celebrating my 60th birthday. Fancy can be fun.
MOM LORI: None of us ate turkey because we didn't know the French word for turkey, so we all ended up with mediocre chicken.
POP GARRY: But we passed the evening by having a turkey drawing contest on place cards.
MOM LORI: Scott won because he drew a turkey inspired by Van Gough — it only had one ear.
POP GARRY: So how does a family maintain a tradition like Thanksgiving when everyone grows up?
MOM LORI: We just have to make it a priority.
POP GARRY: What was your most memorable Thanksgiving?
MOM LORI: One year, my twins both got the chicken pox and we couldn't leave the house so we had frozen turkey microwave dinners.
POP GARRY: Oh, right. That was horrible.
MOM LORI: It was fine until Lily threw mashed potatoes into Charlotte's hair, and then Charlotte whacked her over the head with a wooden spoon.
POP GARRY: I think a family tradition is whatever you make it. But I don't think you should spend a lot of money and cause a lot of grief trying to get everyone together. It's a good family tradition if it doesn't make everyone crazy. If someone can't come because they have to go to the other side of the family, you make do. Avoid anger at all costs.
MOM LORI: Okay. I'll do it.
POP GARRY: Do what?
MOM LORI: Make Thanksgiving at my house.
POP GARRY: But what about your teeny tiny condo?
MOM LORI: We'll squeeze in.
POP GARRY: What can I bring?
MOM LORI: Folding chairs.
POP GARRY: That will make your mother happy. That way she can retire from cooking Thanksgiving and feel like she's passed along a legacy. However, I think you should at least let her carve the turkey. She's very good at that.
MOM LORI: That's a great idea.
POP GARRY: Perfect. And I'll bring some pumpkin pie just so I can make sure it is the right kind. I don't like aspic.
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