Guest Post: Thanksgiving Potatoes

I had never thrown a party except for very informal ones. My skills in the kitchen keep fire alarm companies in business. However, I was determined to fill the shoes of those who had gone before me. Needless to say, though, I was in a little over my head.

As luck would have it, my husband’s a chef. A very tired and stressed business owner chef. One who gets tired of having to cook all the time. Food is not my thing, but it is his. So, hubby vowed to take care of the big things like ham, turkey, and dressing. I would handle everything else.

The first Thanksgiving I went all out on the decorations. I bought a new tablecloth. I found a dozen charger plates (the plates that go under plates and make said plates look good) and I bought these pretty plastic throw-away decorative plates. I had cloth napkins and napkin holders. I even made sure to have nice salt and pepper shakers. I was so proud of myself.

Our table looked great. But because we never had a big crowd at our house, we ended up short on chairs. And since I was in charge of the side dishes, we ended up not having enough potatoes. Funny. It’s surprising how testy people can be when they don’t get enough starch in their Thanksgiving diet.

The next year hubby took over the potatoes. I had all of the decorations from the last year, so the table looked great again. We had extra chairs brought in by family members, so that was covered. However, when I went to make the green bean casserole, I couldn’t find the French fried onions. I bought them on sale a couple of weeks prior, but now they were gone. Hubby didn’t tell me he used them. So, we had onionless green bean casserole and enough potatoes to feed a third world country.

Sigh. I wondered if we’d ever get this down. Would it ever be perfect?

This past year I was talking to my husband’s aunt, asking her how she has pulled off the holidays so smoothly for so many years. She laughed. According to her it’s never been perfect. Something always happened to put a wrinkle in the whole thing. I told her I never noticed her sweating anything, that she handled it with such grace. She told me it’s not about getting everything perfect, but about making memories, good or bad, that count.

Oh, if I’d only realized that before. I always felt like a failure. This is the fifth year since we took over our family’s holiday celebrations, and it still isn’t perfect. However, if you go by the measuring stick of memories I haven’t done so bad. I don’t think hubby or I will ever live down the not enough/too many potatoes. In fact, it’s a running joke now to see how many we’ll end up with.

But now, instead of focusing on perfection, I focus on being thankful for having my family around, potatoes or not, and rejoicing in the perfectly imperfect memories that will last a lifetime.