Tomorrow is the day. At my house, we’re starting with cheeses and
crackers and accompaniments. Dinner will
include: turkey, giblet gravy, sausage
stuffing with fennel and golden raisins, (vegetarian) cheddar squash bread
pudding, (vegetarian) mushroom gravy made with homemade mushroom stock, mashed
potato casserole, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows (traditional!),
corn, Hawaiian rolls, cranberry sauce, sweet potato pie (with either Grand
Marnier whipped cream or Cool Whip, depending on personal preference), and
lemon meringue pie (because my younger son generally dislikes pie but tolerates
this kind). Clearly, we are all going to
starve.
So really, what we need
is a strategy to avoid the food coma.
Here is a news flash: not
everyone likes all the foods we’re having.
This is true for most big occasion dinners. The first easy thing to do is: skip the stuff we don’t like.
Easy is a relative
term. Sometimes relatives make it hard
(heh!). Maybe your grandmother makes
turnips—mine didn’t, but my great-grandmother apparently did for every
Thanksgiving. Maybe you hate turnips,
but she will be crushed if you don’t have some.
Do you disappoint her? Not
knowing your grandmother, I can’t say.
If she’s a lovely person and you want to make her happy, you might eat a
bite. If she’s evil and you’d like to
hasten her into her grave, you can tell her exactly what to do with her root
vegetables—stomping off mad does burn calories and does keep you from eating
All The Pie. My point is that I can’t
say what the right choice is, but thinking about what the choices might be in
advance can help.
The second tactic that is
useful is taking just a taste of everything.
Often that’s enough. Once that
plate is empty, we have more choices. We
can embrace the laziness and refuse to get up to get seconds (doesn’t work if
your family puts everything on the table) or we can win points with whoever is
cooking by leaping at the chance to clear plates and begin on the dishes. Again, the idea is to plan.
No matter what happens,
Thanksgiving is just one day, one big feast.
No one day is going to make or break us.
Sure, we will probably feel better if we avoid the worst excesses of the
day in food, drink, and arguments, but we have all the other days following to
do better if we blow it. We do all the
work of fitness to enjoy our lives and if that means two slices of pie on
Thanksgiving, that is just fine.
