giblets

For as long as I can remember, Thanksgiving has been my least favorite holiday. When we'd go to my grandparents house, the thought of my grandmother's wet, giblet filled, yellow food coloring altered stuffing literally made me gag. The thought of my dad sopping up that stuffing juice with a tiny piece of roll still makes me sick.

Claire and I would carefully arrange English peas, some carrots, a spoonful of some sort of casserole with no discernable parts, and as many rolls as was socially acceptable on our plates.We'd pray no one asked us why we didn't eat more. When Thanksgiving dinner was finally over, Claire and I would pile in the car and make gagging noises as soon as we were out of the sight of my grandparents. Dad would hysterically laugh and mom would roll her eyes at the total grossness of dinner but also at our total dramatics. We'd beg Dad to pull over at ANY open fast food establishment. We'd cram happy meals in our faces and fall asleep in a heap in the backseat.

In the last few years or so, my mom and dad have had Thanksgiving at our house the grossness factor decreased significantly. But, I still don't really like Thanksgiving food. It's just not that good.

This year I'm not going home for Thanksgiving. I always had visions of grandeur for my first grown-up Thanksgiving without my family. I was going to do it right-in my own house, with my own apron, my own menu of homeade lasagna, garlic bread, asparagus, and chocolate pudding.

But the closer my first grown up Thanksgiving gets, the less I want lasagna, and the more I want yellow giblet stuffing to gag over.

So, this year, I'll make turkey (and probably fail), stuffing, and 4 kinds of potatoes, and a casserole that has no discernable parts. Heck, I might even use yellow food coloring just to keep the tradition alive. It just seems right.