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 Anyone who has kept up with the calendar this year
will notice that time didn’t matter after March. In my head, the
calendar was really three months of March, two months of June, a
general feeling that late summer and early fall was a thing that
happened, and then it was the first week of November, which is still
going on, and on...
Because time did not have meaning this year, a lot of holidays went
unnoticed. Even though we should not be gathering at the table
together (I really can’t stress that enough), we can still make the
holiday fun.
So why not throw the whole calendar in a pot and see what happens?
"We already did with the literal passage of time anyway.
Take Thanksgiving for example. Thanksgiving is usually turkey and
ham; dressings; several forms of potatoes; cranberry “sauces,” and
nearly a literal ton of pie. But what happened to Easter? What
happened to St. Patrick’s Day? What happened to Memorial Day? What
about Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day? What about Cinco de Mayo?
Beyond that; the kids didn’t get graduation, and anyone with a
birthday in this time should have stayed home.
We missed out on everything that calls for too much food. So let’s
put it all together instead. Here’s what to do this year to
represent a truly messed up holiday feast for a messed up holiday
calendar.
And before I forget - apply this to Christmas, too. Be honest; we
eat the same thing for Christmas dinner that we eat for
Thanksgiving. I don’t know why, when we already ate the same thing
literally four weeks before.
Let's review how we celebrate starting with St. Patrick’s Day. It’s
the easiest one. Find a bunch of green food coloring, and put it in
something; anything at the table will do. If nothing else, do what
my family does and put out a tray of pickles, olives, and celery.
Get a bunch of cheap beer for those old enough to drink it. Dig your
green hats and scarves and various clothes out of the closet. You
know the ones; you were going to wear it all on the holiday hopping
from one bar to the next.
Make the ham for Easter, not for Thanksgiving. Maybe it’s just me,
but Easter ham always tasted different than Thanksgiving ham. Maybe
it was the glaze. Either way, prep for April. And dig out the eggs.
Instead of going for deviled eggs, just hard boil them and get out
the kid friendly paint.
Memorial Day is one of those days where everyone grills. It seems to
be an unwritten rule. So pull out some beef, grill some hot dogs and
sausage, and turn one of your many potato dishes into fries. It’s
okay; you can still make the mashed potatoes, too (I encourage it).
Mother’s Day and Father’s Day both require a personal touch. This
year, instead of just making the same pile of stuff that you make at
every Thanksgiving, try asking the mothers and fathers that would be
at your table what they would actually want. They may be surprised
at themselves as they realize they don’t want to eat the same thing
they ate last year. I maintain that most people don’t really want
the same turkey every year; we just do it for “reasons.”
I wasn’t kidding when I put Cinco de Mayo in my list of holidays to
throw in here. Every holiday needs tacos if you ask me. Get some
tortillas, make some homemade chips, and put out four kinds of salsa
and queso. Everything is better with Queso (that’s nacho cheese for
those who don’t know. But not the generic kind; the homemade stuff)
https://
dinnerthendessert.com/queso-dip/
If you have any high school or college graduates in the family, make
what you were going to make for them as a celebration. This will
probably be a lot of appetizers. Experience tells me graduates love
to eat a bunch of appetizers so they can leave with as few leftovers
as possible.
Finally, get a birthday cake. Being an adult means buying a cake
whenever you want, and I think this year made adults out of all of
us, whether we wanted it or not. And put on a party hat.
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There’s two ways to share all of this food. Either
way, you want to assign everyone that would have been at your table
to a recipe or two, depending on how many people would have been
involved. Then you have a decision to make.
First choice, have everyone make a large quantity of their assigned
foods. Then split it up into the two dozen plastic containers that
everyone has on hand at any given point in time. Think about your
cabinet right now. You know you have too many containers, and you’re
not sure where they came from. You even have an excuse to let people
keep them afterwards.
Then you pick a time and a place where everyone can gather in their
cars to split up the goods. It’s going to feel a little weird, like
a clandestine meeting with Deep Throat. The goal is that everyone
still shares their food, spends as little time together physical as
possible, and then leaves. At most, you can eat together but
separately, breathing the air in your vehicle and no one else’s.
Alternatively, and I would prefer this method, everyone makes what
they want from their list, sits at their own table, and eats
together over Zoom or Skype or something along those lines. If you
really want to, you can still cook the food at the same time in
completely separate places and watch each other do it.
We live in the future - the Star Trek style communication screen of
my childhood is real. Why don’t we use it? It’s tailor made for
avoiding dangerous stuff in the middle (like the 'vacuum of space'
or a terrible disease in the air). Just make sure the host has a
stable Internet connection and you’re good. And you don’t really
have to put pants on if you’re careful.
With the latter method, the only leftovers we have are the ones we
want, not the extra turkey that nobody really wants. Did you notice
I left the bird out entirely? Be honest - the turkey isn’t what
makes the holiday.
The point I’m trying to make here is that time didn’t matter this
year. Truthfully, holiday meals don’t matter at all. What matters is
the time we have, even if March and September felt like the same
week.
And we have to be sure when we can actually sit together. It already
wasn’t worth it for the arguments or Uncle Jack’s conspiracy
theories, and it’s not worth potentially losing the same loved ones
you want to see. Stay safe this year instead.
If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go start the grill. I personally
threw Octoberfest in there too, and the sausages won’t cook
themselves.
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