Banquets to Boxed Stuffing

"We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love."

― Mother Teresa

I love small things. Simple things. All kinds of tiny things: shells, stones, toys, flowers, critters. They feel safe and manageable yet magical, like the fairies I imagined living in the enchanted flower garden of my childhood backyard. This love of simplicity and aversion to things that require elaborate planning and effort started when my father and I moved from our large family home to a small apartment when I was eleven. This was also when my ambivalence about the holidays began.

Reflecting on that time from my childhood reminds me how I’m still learning to balance my need for simplicity with my desire to create meaningful moments for the ones I love. So, as I do every year, I’ve started thinking about how much energy I’ll have for food preparation or whether I’ll feel up to meeting with family and friends.

I didn’t have this problem when I was still married. My holiday plans were fixed and unchanging, and I was expected to visit my in-laws no matter how I felt about it. To do anything else was considered selfish and inconsiderate.

In some ways, I was relieved to have the burden of planning and preparing meals carried by someone else. All I had to do was show up! Besides, my family didn’t have strong family traditions that bound us together, and I wanted that for my kids (though I couldn’t say precisely why…only that these traditions seemed important somehow).

My father, who had moved to another state as soon as I got married, and my mother, trapped in her own world, were not disappointed or offended that my holidays were planned ad infinitum…or so I thought.

The marriage did not last--although we gave it a 24-year-long effort. Long enough for my kids to adopt the traditions of their father’s family as their own. Divorce has a way of making you rethink your traditions, or the absence of them, and what makes holidays meaningful.

“Sometimes, the simple things are more fun and meaningful than all the banquets in the world.”

– E.A. Bucchianeri

After the divorce, I was free to plan my holidays in whatever way I chose—no more awkward moments around the dining room table wondering when some sarcastic comment would be aimed like an expert archer at whomever among us seemed most vulnerable. No more self-righteous, judgmental comments about truant family members. Their reason for absence whispered as though we all knew the reason given certainly wasn’t a legitimate reason.

Now, on my own, my desire to create meaningful holidays prompted me to contemplate the origin of my ambivalent feelings about this supposedly joyful time of year. As a child, I remember sensing my dad’s melancholy mood growing and deepening along with the color of the fall leaves, signaling the approaching winter and the dreaded holiday season. I particularly remember the first Christmas we spent alone, and although he didn’t want to decorate, he let me put together our artificial tree while he sat smoking and staring out the window. I thought it was my mother’s illness and the resulting disintegration of our small family that caused his depression. However, my intuition says it probably started earlier, maybe the death of his little brother due to Hodgkin's disease when he was only a child. I’ll never know, but even though my dad is gone, his distaste for the holidays stays with me, a Grinch-shaped intruder behind the curtain watching me softly hum holiday songs as I pull out the worn decoration boxes from the attic. Ever present but doggedly ignored.

Dining Room

Dad in his favorite spot.

Eventually, I made an uneasy bargain with this intruder—you stay hidden while my kids are around. I’ll wallow a bit and whisper about how I dislike the holidays for various reasons: too busy, too commercial, etc. This worked, and we settled into a shaky rhythm, with me simultaneously anticipating and dreading the season.

Figuring out what to do besides spending days and hours planning and cooking was another story. With little to draw upon and not wanting to replicate my former in-laws' elaborate and highly perfected gatherings, I needed to find my own way. Besides, I never enjoyed cooking and wasn’t very good at it either, so I certainly would NOT be spending my days baking cookies, planning meals, or hosting parties.

Whatever I did, it had to honor my need for simplicity and minimal planning. What had my dad done for the holidays when he became a single parent?

My memory of that time is fuzzy. However, I know he must have been overwhelmed by working long hours and caring for me on his own, yet he somehow prepared many memorable Thanksgiving meals. What made them special? Was he a great cook? Did he prepare everything from scratch and lay out a perfect table as my parents had done before their separation (at least, this is what the worn picture album tells me they did)?

I was pondering these questions again last week as I picked my way through the grocery store when something caught my eye. A man was carefully stacking red and yellow boxes near the entrance to the store. The display was growing tall, reaching above his head, as he swiftly but deftly stacked the Stove Top Stuffing boxes. Seeing those colors flooded me with memories…

“Here’s to the moments when you realize the simple things are wonderful and enough.”

– Jill Badonsky

It is the fall of 1978, my first Thanksgiving since moving to the shoebox apartment on the lake with my father. Our first holiday season sans mom. I am slowly adjusting to my new life yet trying to hold onto what Thanksgiving was like when we were home—home as in “all together.” Will this shoebox ever feel like home?

The apartment is part of a planned community on a private lake with a mysterious island in the middle that drew me like a magnet. Maybe I could sail over there and step foot into a different world, a different life, one that felt like home again.

It’s a gray day. The trees have dropped their remaining leaves and blend with the sky in an unbroken blanket of gloom. My new best friend, Beatrice, sits next to me at our too-small table in our too-small dining room. This entire apartment could fit into the family room of our previous house…or should I say home.

It feels like my whole life has been shrunk down into a too-tight space, the kind of room where you turn sideways to move past furniture. One Christmas, back when my family was still together, and I was maybe four years old, I got a yellow Fisher Price Little People Playhouse (I think it is considered vintage now), the kind with the little plastic people who had no arms or legs, only the round bottoms that fit inside tiny chairs or cars. I loved that playhouse. Every day, I would lay flat on my tummy, head pressed sideways on the dark carpet, and peer inside the windows, running my fingers slowly over the small, lithographed flowers that lined the outside border of the house. Why were they flat? Why was there no texture? This is how things feel now in our new shoebox apartment: little and flat, no texture, no life.

Christmas circa 1970/71

I am frozen with joy.

Beatrice, however, is tickled to be here. To my great surprise, her mother permitted her to eat Thanksgiving with us (not many of my friends were allowed to come over as it was unusual for a man to be raising a child alone, especially in the 1970s). So, here we sit, squirming in our chairs as my father, mere feet from us, moves slowly but steadily about the kitchen. Lady, our timid Shetland Sheepdog, hovers nearby and keeps an eye out for tasty scraps. But there’s no chance of falling crumbs as there’s no chopping, grating, excessive stirring, or mixing in my dad’s cooking. Instead, the sound of boxes being torn open and the whir of an electric can opener fills our ears. One box stands out. Maybe it’s the bright colors or its association with my father’s loving effort, but the Stove Top Stuffing box holds a special place in my heart.

As darkness grows and lights are turned on, our table is laid out with a small turkey, boxed stuffing, canned green beans, cranberry sauce, and instant mashed potatoes. Memorable. Meaningful. We giggle as we stuff our mouths, and Beatrice announces that she loves my dad’s cooking! My dad smiles, the first I’ve seen in a while, and we laugh as he makes a joke. We all agree that the stuffing is the best part.

As the memories of that Thanksgiving in 1978 fade, I find their echoes in my present-day celebrations. I still feel a touch of melancholy around the holidays and occasionally struggle with what it takes to make gatherings memorable. But recently, when my son said, “I like your stuffing better than the homemade stuff,” it reminded me that even boxed stuffing can feel like home.

Christmas 1975

Dad and me visiting my grandmother for Christmas.