Why I’m Committed to a Low-Lift Thanksgiving (And You Should Be, Too)

We weren’t supposed to have Thanksgiving in 2014. Patrick, Ethan, and I were supposed to be neither hosts nor guests. We had no plans to travel to our families, and we declined to join friends nearby. We drew the curtains on the world because I was supposed to be recovering postpartum, punch drunk with fatigue and love for our new son. Instead, he was one week late—imposing his delay on Thanksgiving Day—and our family of almost four woke up with no plans.

The 55 pounds of added weight, split between my waist and toes, made it impossible to reach the top of the cutting board. Leaning down to push things into the oven? Not a chance. Still, over the course of the day, it became clear that the baby wasn’t coming, so I proclaimed we couldn’t do without Thanksgiving dinner. I would cook.

“It’s fine if we don’t have turkey. I never liked it anyway,” Patrick confessed when I told him the store only had 20-pounders—a relief, since the thought of having leftovers blue-screened my brain.

Bloated and discombobulated, I made many trips to Fairway Market, each time forgetting what I went for, walking home with a whole chicken, a bag of King’s Hawaiian rolls, potatoes, and ice cream, and returning for fancy butter, a loaf of pumpkin bread, a can of creamed corn, and a box of Jiffy cornbread mix. I pushed the groceries in a stroller, while Ethan, who was almost two, meandered the 10 blocks on his teeny tiny legs. Back and forth, back and forth, the two of us spent most of the day walking.

What happens when you’re a toddler and don’t get a traditional Thanksgiving meal? Absolutely nothing. I bought Ethan a green apple-flavored lollipop and a mini pumpkin as rewards for the out and backs to the store. With those, he remained a happy sailor. Knowing that no one would burst into tears if turkey wasn’t served, I decided to cook what I wanted to eat and felt I had the energy to tackle it.

I didn’t follow the familiar formula for Thanksgiving dinner—the enormous roast, creamy potatoes with loads of gravy, carby stuffing, and cranberry sauce to cut through the tidal wave of richness. I roasted a chicken sprinkled with oil, salt, and pepper and threw small potatoes coated in curry powder on the same pan. I made a spoonable creamy cornbread with a box of Jiffy cornbread mix and a can of creamed corn. Not one dish took me more than five minutes to prepare. I’m certain I didn’t use a cutting board, breaking the unspoken rule that Thanksgiving should be a heavy lift in order to be triumphant.

Serving dinner was much less of a performance. Our fancy platters and plates hid somewhere too deep in the cupboards, so everything came to the table in the pan it was cooked in or the container it was sold in. Ethan’s small pumpkin, our sole fall-themed decor, rolled under the couch. Nevertheless, we licked the chicken bones and plates clean, and ended the meal with big scoops of ice cream on pumpkin bread I didn’t bake.

And just like that, we got to claim the spoils without having fought the war. It was the easiest, lowest-lift, yet most delicious Thanksgiving we’d ever had—a quiet little victory we hadn’t planned for.

You might be thinking, Lady, you can’t call that a Thanksgiving meal. I’d respond, Gobble, gobble! Go ahead and call the turkey police! That day taught us something better than how to cook the perfect feast. Our embrace of Thanksgiving—even without turkey, or maybe because it wasn’t served—was an embrace of our family and the grace we gave each other that year. It showed us that the heart of the holiday isn’t in getting it right, but in making space for what’s real, and ours.

Perhaps staying on my feet all day helped things along, because after cleaning up dinner, contractions began, and Oliver arrived. His timing was perfect, just like our Thanksgiving.