The older I get, the less I remember about childhood Thanksgivings. Shocking, I know. In my defense, they happened so long ago that there are barely any pictures. Pre-internet Thanksgivings might as well have taken place during the Babylonian exile; if there aren’t 67 digital photos of the turkey, did it even exist?
Here’s what I do remember: My mother refused to cook big meals on back-to-back days, so we often had Friday Thanksgiving meals on Shabbat instead. Then again, I also remember watching the Leon Lett game, and I think that game wrapped around a turkey dinner, right? Who knows; memory is fleeting, and a person often forgets even what they once learned. I can’t even help my eighth grader with her math homework.
When I married my wife, this made the holiday very easy. Thursdays in Rhode Island, Fridays in Massachusetts—problem solved. That lasted for 15 years or so, until the combination of my mother’s death and my in-laws renovating their kitchen gave us an opening. We leapt at the chance to take over hosting, and those rights are unlikely to be relinquished anytime soon. I love that we “make” Thanksgiving, despite the frenetic cleaning and preparations, and it fits a genuine Talmudic ideal: “Hospitality to guests is greater than welcoming the Divine Presence” (Shabbat 127a). In other words, once you host, you’re hosting forever—until your kids snatch it away from you.
For my money, there’s nothing like Thanksgiving. Starting Monday, you can feel it coming. Thanksgiving is that rare time when Americans silently agree to leave each other alone for 72 hours. Even Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week are a little performative—people start taking it very easy, and if anyone dares suggest any actual work or (gasp) a meeting for Wednesday, well, that is not a thing. Once Wednesday afternoon breaks out, I get very few emails, and the next few days kind of lazily pass with a warm happiness. A miracle, perhaps not quite oil-lasting-eight-days level, but still respectable.
This year, I look forward to a full house again: older kids back from school, the family trying to top the global leaderboard for Yard House trivia on Wednesday because I’m not cooking on Erev Thanksgiving, the turkey going in at 4 a.m. while I go to the gym at 5, helping out at the turkey trot, cranberry concoctions bubbling, the bread maker working overtime, the kitchen speaker pulsating, the ceremonial wearing of the Pilgrim hat by our 11-year-old, and 15 people arriving by noon. By midmorning, it already looks like the Talmud’s observation that, “Where there is food, there is commotion” (Pesachim 109a). Okay, that’s not a direct translation, or even a close one, but the food-chaos-music-power nexus is undeniable.
But honestly, the highlight is the moment the front door opens, and the big kids walk in. Jewish texts nail this feeling. The Talmud’s commentary might as well be: “Nothing rejuvenates a parent like a child returning home and immediately asking if there’s anything to eat” (Parenting 101a).
The Talmud echoes this in Kiddushin 31b, teaching that even small acts from children can fulfill the commandment of kibbud av va’em—honoring one’s father and mother. And honoring parents includes more than just big, formal obligations; it’s also the emotional and relational side of being present—watching the Celtics, playing Wordle, walking the dog, talking about random memories, and more. And if those small acts also include immediately raiding the fridge, then my children are righteous beyond measure.
Anyway, all of this is just at the front end of the weekend. Newer holiday traditions that now feel permanent include taking the T into Boston for a walk (although we are ditching the shopping-at-Primark segment due to some very overt anti-Israel stuff last year), hiking at the Carlisle cranberry bog, watching the Iron Bowl with friends on Saturday, and turkey soup all weekend. This year, the Black Friday Bruins game has been added to the mix, and that should…might…will…be a good time.
So, I’ve got my plans. I’ve got the food. I’ve got the schedule and the kitchen speaker under my full control. Now I just need the big kids to walk back through that door—fulfilling in their own way what the Torah describes when Joseph’s brothers return home, that “the spirit of their father Jacob revived” (Genesis 45:27). Because nothing restores a parent quite like that moment.
Once that happens, I’ll be ready to go.
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