treaters!

thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year.

hands-down.

i spend it in nebraska every year with my entire dad’s family.

that’s right… brunswick, nebraska… population 110.  googlemap it (my favorite thing to do), and you’ll find a tiny grid of 3 or 4 streets, with the post office and elementary school highlighted.  zoom out, keep zooming out, yes…. keep zooming out, and eventually something else will come on the map, i promise.

my dad’s family has been going to brunswick for thanksgiving every single year since my dad was born.  i’ve never spent thanksgiving anywhere else.  in fact, with two exceptions (aly, your famous thanksgiving potluck once… and just this past saturday with steve and ruth) i have never even eaten thanksgiving food anywhere else except nebraska.  it feels almost sacrilegious, i must say.

why brunswick?  the full story is too long to describe, but essentially my grandmother grew up there during the great depression, living off almost nothing, raising a few pigs, and eating radish & butter sandwiches (to this day, she still loves them).  with ridiculous determination, and a miracle or two, she eventually ended up in chicago and met my grandfather.  later on, he decided to build a log cabin back in brunswick, to preserve and to commemorate the place that had represented so much hardship, and yet so many good memories, for my grandmother’s family.  and so it was built.  and the first of many legendary thanksgivings were celebrated within its splintered walls. 

my grandfather has passed away now, and my grandma lives most of the year outside chicago.  but she still goes out to brunswick every fall around thanksgiving, and again in the spring – where she can separate from the chaos of the rest of the word, visit with cousins and siblings who are still within a few hours’ drive, and wake up to the prairie she has always loved so much.

and for the week around thanksgiving, the population in brunswick doubles, or maybe triples, as my family descends upon its empty and manure-scented streets.  there’s still the blue shag-carpeted and crooked remains of the house my great-grandmother josephine weaver (aka great granny with the wheels.. she had MS, and thus both legs were amputated) lived in, which we call the hotel jose.  and my grandma recently bought the empty school house, installing a shower in it, so it can be used as a bunkhouse for overflow. 

in general, it is just a massive love-fest.  as i pull in the driveway every year, before i can get the car in park, the cabin door flies open and out everyone pours, hooting and hollering, waving arms wildly.  the receiving line lasts forever, at least it seems so.  it’s one of the best feelings i experience all year long.  that, and walking into the glow of the cabin to see the familiar old quilts, buffalo bill drawings, decks of cards everywhere, and heavy wooden beams strung with cast iron skillets that were brought across the country in covered wagons. 

we shack up wherever we find room.  i’m usually on the pullout couch, which is my favorite, second only to the sheepskin rug in front of the fireplace.  the hunters always sleep elsewhere, either in the hotel jose, or in the schoolhouse, and are up at dawn to walk the fields.  back in the cabin, the kitchen smells of fresh coffee and maple syrup, and a massive breakfast is being assembled with pancakes, coffee cakes, fresh squeezed orange juice, fried local eggs, and a platter of bacon and sausage as heavy as a small child.   eventually someone spots an old maroon woody station wagon rounding the corner of the driveway, and shouts “the hunters are home!!!”  the doors pour open once more, and everyone trades hugs with the smelly suspendered men as we assemble for a massive group photo with the pheasants and quail. 

in brunswick, four main activities prevail:

1)     hunting pheasant.  this is generally a male-only activity.  women are technically allowed to “hunt”, but by hunt, i mean walk along with the men and help flush out the birds.  the last time i did this, i was referred to as a “walking chick”, and was also instructed to carry a thermos of hot cocoa and some dixie cups.  but don’t get me wrong.  most of the time, we’d rather be hanging in the cabin anyway.  there’s something amazingly refreshing and comforting about slipping into a traditional female role for a few days, and i think we’d all secretly agree, we love it.  and while the men love hunting to fulfill the very primitive instinct of putting food on the table… they, too, are mostly in it for the intangibles – the experience of walking the prairie at sunrise, of communicating so intimately and magically with the dogs, and of being with each other.

2)     cooking.  this is generally a female-only activity.  actually, i think it is always a female-only activity.  the only time i’ve seen men set foot in the kitchen is to do the dishes, or to steal pickles from the fridge (i see you, kyle)

3)     eating and drinking.  in no moderation.  which has absolutely everything to do with the utter success of activity #2.

4)     playing cards.  a game called pitch to be exact.  at basically any hour of any day (except for between the hours of 1am and 5am, when the superior game of MITCH is played by a select and destined few) you can find a pitch game going on in the cabin.  wednesday night before thanksgiving, we used to have an annual rollerskating party.  since the nearest “rink” is now an hour away, we instead have a massive pitch and pizza tournament… complete with a full bracket, a trophy engraved with the winners and runners up**, and a pre-tourny singing of the national anthem as we all stand and face the wooden-framed photos of our ancestors above the fireplace.  yup, not kidding.

{** except for when heavy drinking on the part of all participants has led to a lack of recording and remembering who the actual champions were.}  

thanksgiving day itself is always ten times more chaotic, with an influx of even more relatives.  the traditions are too numerous to list, but always involve a counterfull of the best pies ive ever…. ever… eaten, and a thanksgiving play in the evening.  we used to all participate in the play, but these days it is pretty much single-handedly acted, sung, directed, and produced by my genius... and soon-to-be-famous... cousin, bret.

and every evening, as the hours seep from night into morning, the most secret, and epic of thanksgiving traditions ensues.  my cousins kyle, ardie, sister betsy and i huddle around a dimly lit card table, drinking whiskey out of tea cups and gravy saucers, and hand after hand of mitch is played out, while the mortals look on.  what follows is too sacred to list here, but minute-by-minute records are kept in the mible (mitch bible), which itself is stored in a secret location within the cabin^^.

{^^ but if evan reed had fulfilled her mitch pledge class duties during thanksgiving 2010, the mible would instead be stored in a vault, buried deep in the nebraskan earth.}

we come from all across the country to meet up in brunswick, and we will be doing so as long as we all live.  there is no place, and no people, in the world that better remind me how truly thankful i am.  and more than anything, the holiday is about my grandmother... mary lee… granny… treater.  she is the true matriarch in our family.  never have i seen someone command more respect and admiration than she does, but somehow with her cherished smile, her giant cushiony hugs and her bright pink fingernail polish, she also generates more love than anyone should be lucky enough to feel. 

i’m pretty sure she invented the word treater.  either way, it epitomizes her approach to living, which is a contagious combination of appreciating the very simplest of things and constantly giving to others. 

when she holds your hand (which she does most times she’s talking with you), the world melts away… when she picks up a crossword puzzle, it’s completed before you can even read the first clue… when she tells stories in a room full of raucous people, you can hear a pin drop… when she sets foot in the kitchen, i’m pretty sure miracles happen… and when she makes the thanksgiving toast every year, we all cry.

 (thank you, sister gladys, for loaning me your camera while we were there, and for sending me your pictures too!!)

this year, i gave her a hardbound copy of my thesis dissertation.  it was dedicated to her (as well as to my sister betsy).  it was my dad’s idea to bring it out to nebraska, and i had almost forgotten about it.  thinking it was maybe a silly gesture, but agreeing anyway, i gave it to her, wrapped in a bow, the day before thanksgiving.  reading through the dedication, she burst into tears.  my grandma is a beautifully emotional person, and i have seen her cry many times, but never have i seen her lose composure that way.  she kept showing it to my relatives, and each time she’d open to the page and pass it to them, she’d choke up before she could speak, and pour her head in her hands.  it was making us tear up just to watch her.  that night as my aunt helped her into bed, she came back out, looking for it so she could bring it in with her as she slept.

in all seriousness (i’ve explained this to a few people now)… i’d have done the entire five years of grad school for that reaction alone.  it meant a thousand times more to me than any degree ever could. 

really was one of the best moments in my life.