...or they wear nothing at all.

I could really use some English Leather right about now. Or some Old Spice or Polvo Maja. Any scent that reminds me of my grandparents, really, just to trigger memories. Recollections of Thanksgivings past that, at least to me, were always so perfectly simple.

Every fourth Thursday in November, no mater what I was doing in life or where I was at that particular moment in time, I knew Id go over to my Tia Lulu's house and spend the holiday with my entire family. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, family friends, parents, sister, nieces. The whole canalla.

Thanksgiving dinner was set in stone back then because my grandparents were still with us and they were the patriarchs. The elders. The ones that didnt necessarily call the actual shots, but who approved them. They were respected, as Cuban viejos are, and that demanded that their family be together on special occassions. Everyone, no exceptions.

Thanksgiving 2008 is around the corner and, in all honesty, I could use a little olfactory reminiscence via cheap cologne and spanish talcum powder. I can almost no longer recall what it was like to have everyone together like we used to on Thanksgiving back then.

Lately it seems like our family is spread all over the place. Where we used to enjoy the holiday in one place, year after year, now there really is no set tradition for Thanksgiving anymore. Every recent year the holiday has been turned into a quest to see what the heck we're going to do. Who's gonna cook? Whose house will be be going to? Who's coming or going?

Bah. Humbug.

Maybe it's just a generational thing as new families are started and grow. I dont know. All I know is that for me, Thanksgiving was never a vagabond holiday. I knew where I was going to thank God before wonderful meal and I knew that I would get to spend the entire day there with my entire family. Now, I have to travel from home to home like a Thanksgiving Willy Loman, por compromisos and necessity, peddling reserved joy.

I'll be bouncing from home to home come Thursday, when all I really want is to spend the day in one place, deciphering my Grandmother's "chitu chiti's" and infected with my grandfather's laughter, with the scent of roast turkey, congris and English Leather all around me.

Posted by Val Prieto at November 25, 2008 10:35 AM

Comments

Posted by: Cigar Mike Pancier at November 25, 2008 11:15 AM