I had never cooked a turkey before.

It is a fitting intro to such a ridiculous adventure.  I’m sure many other husbands/dads were facing the same scenario this year.  2020 had pulled more than one rabbit out of the many hats I had to wear, and in this ever learning, yet never mastering continuum of time named 2020-bazaar, I decided to give this cooking thing a try.  

Usually, the Thanksgiving turkey is cooked by one of the legendary matriarchs of the family.  As a kid, my Grandma Carr would bust out the skills and treat us all to the best feast you could imagine.  She would make quite a spread.  With so many good things to try, there was only so much room in one kid’s stomach. Each year I decided to strategize and use my available storage room for only what I liked best- stuffing.  

Through the years I developed a reputation.  I was the kid who’s first plate was the laugh of the dinner, the talk of the table.  I didn’t care.  I would pile the stuffing high and pour on the gravy proudly, eyeing up my delicious mound of mouth-watering delight as everyone was ready to dive into their own plates. We aren’t talking about over the counter or box stuffing mix.  We are talking the real and none other than homemade, hand-cut recipe that I waited for each year.  Just for holiday sake, and to appease the Thanksgiving police, I might put a small piece of turkey on the side but had to gauge things accurately and couldn’t risk the stomach space on too much of anything else- even the feathered friend.  I actually got so excited about it, that prior to the meal I would conduct an off-the-record survey, asking people what their first plate was going to be.  

Mine never wavered.

In time, I discovered a magical remedy to my bulging stomach problem.  I never wanted to stop at one, two, or even three plates of thanksgiving dinner.  Over the years, I happened to land on a cure for the stuffing gut dilemma.  

Pistachios.  

I’m not sure if it was the salt, or the time passed shelling them, but when you are completely full on stuffing and reach for the jar of pistachios, they actually reduce the swelling.  As the years passed, I dubbed them as “full reducers,” a label that quickly caught on as the second talk of the table each year.

Unfortunately, this year due to Covid, we couldn’t meet as a family.  The whole thing got called off when one of our members got sick.  Leading up to the actual holiday, it was like a rare, urban myth was being passed around.  “We aren’t doing Thanksgiving this year?”  Yeah, right!

But behold, Thanksgiving quickly approached. Caught off guard, I realized we had no turkey.  My reliance on the “same-as-always” was going down in flames.  Nobody was going to cook Thanksgiving meal for us.  My wife was cooking all the other stuff, deviled eggs, sweet potatoes, green beans, rolls, and dessert.  But turkey?  We had none.

I soon realized that the day before Thanksgiving is not the best day to examine your lack of preparation.  My wife actually thinks I’m a procrastinator.  Huh?  How dare she! 

I got on the phone, finding only one- yes, one turkey left.  It was a nineteen pounder.  The only fresh turkey that the grocery store had left to offer.  We ran out to get it, though my wife wanted me to try to find a smaller one.  She didn’t think we could eat a nineteen-pound turkey.

Bigger is better, right?

In an effort to continue my well-known sense of putting things off, I waited until about 7:00 p.m. that night to think about how to cook him.

I had never cooked a turkey.  We had no roaster.  We didn’t have a fryer.  No rotisserie.  Too cold to make an earth oven, ground oven, or cooking pit.  Hmmm. . . I dialed the matriarchs and asked if we could borrow a roaster.

Due to the unfortunate mishap of my Grandmother recently breaking her hip, those who were concerned of her trying to go downstairs into her basement with a newly reconstructed joint had locked the cellar door. She couldn’t go down and get her big roaster. It was too late to bug someone else to go unlock it and get the roaster for me.  All she had upstairs was the “little” one, one that would have easily fit a smaller bird like my wife had suggested.  Small?  But my turkey? Gram doubted it would work.  Go big or go home, right?

‘Twas the night before Thanksgiving and all through the house. . . an idea loomed through the airways and tapped me on the shoulder. At about 9:00 p.m. I figured I better look at the bird itself.  My plan was airtight.  I’d prepare the turkey and have it ready for morning.  I’d wake up at 6:00 a.m. and just put him in the oven.  Then I could go back to sleep until my holiday body wanted to wake up.  I pulled the “fresh” turkey out of the refrigerator and cut it open.  Not a clue what to do, I Facetimed my sister.  Her face shriveled up like a raisin.  “Is that a frozen turkey?”  

Frozen?  This is the last “fresh” turkey in Pennsylvania, right?  This is the big one, not the fresh “small” one.  

Ice coated the legs, the inner, hollow core, and the wire that some madman had permanently tied and fused into the meat.  Yes, my bird was frozen.  Now what?

“Well, you have to take out the gibblets,” my sister instructed.

“Ok.  Got it. How are you supposed to get anything out with this wire frozen in place?”

I hung up the phone.  Time for innovation.

I pulled a big butcher knife from our block of others. The big bird wasn’t going to fit in the roaster anyway.  I figured I could cut my way into the turkey, retrieve the gibblits, and cut out the wires. Shortly into the effort, I had to run hot water on my fingers to thaw them back out.  They were painfully cold.  Maybe permafroze.  When the water thawed them back to life I continued until I finally succeeded though it didn’t look like a turkey anymore.  

Success?  Yes.  The gibblets were out.

Now that the bag of unwanted parts and neck were thrown away, the task arose to make a nineteen-pound bird fit into a small roaster.  Impossible, I figured I would just keep the parts people actually ate and throw away the rest.  I did the cut-and-chunk method.  Moments later, the stacked-up turkey fit, and almost as a special decoration, like a cherry on the top, the cooking indicator button was face up right on the top. 

Brilliant.

Now to spice him.  

Faerie had recently rearranged all the spices. Couldn’t find what the matriarchs said to use.  Sooo. . . a pinch of this, a pile of that. . . I seasoned the meat as what seemed to bring out a nice color.  O well. I’m sure it will be fine.

There was also a large discrepancy among female members of the Carr family as to how long I needed to cook this dinner.  Mathematics came out.  Specific calculations of the most diligent kind told me over the phone that I needed a much longer time than I intended.  Nineteen-pound turkeys take a long time to cook.  Hmmm.  “But my turkey isn’t nineteen pounds anymore, is it?”  With a quick estimation, I figured I had whittled a bird weighing almost twenty pounds down to about three. Haha.  It would be cooked in no time.  

I put the turkey in the oven with love at about 9:00 a.m. Thanksgiving morning.  I figured we had plenty of time.  At 10:30 a.m. we checked it.  Still seemed raw.

While waiting on the forever turkey, my wife started making the other things.  Making the dough for the crescent rolls, “Stikkel Gold,” as she calls them, and she wasn’t realizing what was going on.  The beaters were too fast and wound the dough up into the guts of the mixer.  Then our youngest wanted to help and she let him pound on the dough.  He was having a ball.  Stringing dough high into the air it was the most fun thing to on Thanksgiving, ever!  Thanksgiving would be happy, if nothing else, and the smiles on faces proved it.  Until he knocked a glass over and shattered it everywhere.  Luckily, he was on his tiptoes, and I swiped him off the chair before he planted his feet into any of the shards of glass.  I swept the floor.  We got crocks and began to wear them.

It was about then, that Justin started rounding the house looking for food.  His teenage stomach is bottomless.  He sat at the table and ate a full plate of leftovers from the night before.  “Juss!  We are having thanksgiving dinner!”  He simply continued eating, calm, free from emotion, saying that he’d still be eating a full dinner when ours was ready.

A little while later, totally caught off guard, I peeked in the oven only to see that the ready button was already popped out of the turkey.  Nobody had expected the raw turkey to be done so soon.  A whirl swept through the kitchen; a frenzied tornado trying to finish everything else before the meat got too dry or cold.  All hands were on deck.  Justin helped stir the beans, we threw the sweet potatoes together, slammed everything in the oven and tried our best to keep our stomachs from eating themselves.  An instant, almost avalanching wave of hunger flooded over us.  Soon we would be eating high on the hog.  

But we forgot the stuffing!  

I reached to the pantry and grabbed a box of Stove-top. What an abomination! How could we have forgot?

We also forgot the mashed potatoes.  My wife said it felt like a sin.

Then the four-year-old started crying for hunger pains. He wanted to eat, and he wanted to eat now.  So, Faerie made some mozzarella and pepperoni Ritz cracker sandwiches.  He is a very picky eater.  Nope, not good enough- he wanted them melted together.  Then Justin came out of nowhere with an atom bomb.  He wondered why we were eating Thanksgiving for lunch. I guess he figured the meal was meant for supper.  “Who ever eats Thanksgiving for lunch?”  He looked at us like our skin had turned purple.  I turned to my wife and gave her a stumped look as well.  I was baffled.  Not sure where this came from; we were both obviously out in left field.  Didn’t everybody eat Thanksgiving dinner for lunch?  Knowing this, I suppose his large plate of leftovers made sense.  Maybe I should have joined him.  Anyhow, I made a great rebound by stating that we were doing both this year.

When all the kids were ok, we continued cooking.  

And then the time came that we were all waiting for. The food was ready, the stage set. The crescent rolls were still rising, but we figured we could do that later.  Our stomachs were convulsing, famished for food, and the grand time had come.  The lid came off the turkey.  The steam cleared; we awaited the prize.

“It’s not crispy!”  

My wife blurted out the obvious.  The turkey looked like it was waterlogged, not crispy. I forgot that the matriarch of Thanksgiving had said to brown it once it was cooked. Yes, the button was out- that was all I glanced at.  Apparently, I had put more water in the roaster than I should have, and this bird added to it by draining a ton of juices!  It’s a wonder the roaster didn’t overflow.  I reached into the pot with a fork and tried to pick off a piece of sodden meat.

“Worst turkey I’ve ever eaten.”  I couldn’t help but be frank.

Looking back, I suppose that there could have been worse.  I suppose it could have caught fire and burned our kitchen to the ground.  I suppose that an array of other crazy things could have occurred.  I suppose that the grocery store could have been out of turkey to begin with, leaving us nothing to cook.  But this was 2020, and I was going to make the best of it.  I looked to my family.  I held my head high.

“It doesn’t matter.  It’s a great dinner.”  I thought I patched things over well.

But nobody ate much turkey.

So, this really makes me think.  

Could things have gotten any worse this year?  Honestly, yes.  Could 2020 be any more dramatic?  Yep, there is always room to grow.  In a time when the world is on edge, everything is abnormal, and most of us around the world are just trying to survive. . . 

What's this? Salvation in its purest form?

At 2:30 p.m., later in the afternoon, our youngest got hungry.  Faerie decided to try to give him turkey.  Guess what? He ate it!  Let me clear my throat; let me say that again.  Hum, hum. Ladies and gentlemen, our youngest ate turkey.  Not only did he eat a whole plate of turkey, the confused child wanted more.  He ate a second, then a third!  

In a moment when nobody liked the turkey, the least expected had occurred.  Of all people, the picky one, the child, the youngest of the family, ate the meat that was wrapped and blanketed with so much mayhem!  What a spectacular lesson it brought to the surface.

This year, things might not seem normal.  Things may have happened this year, like the losing of a job, health, a mother-in-law, who knows. . . it was a crazy year.  But can we make the best of it?  Are we not called to do so by the same Lord who gives us all good things?

2 Corinthians 9:8

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

Haven’t we been blessed with sufficiency in all ways by Christ Jesus?  Even now, in 2020?

No turkey, no problem.  We have lots of love in this house.  2020 has nothing on us.  

Today I want to challenge you.  Make this year’s Thanksgiving the best yet.  Take the abnormal and turn it around.  Make something out of nothing.  Is Thanksgiving more than the turkey, the stuffing, or the full reducers?  Absolutely. It is exactly what you make of it. Holidays, especially this one, is much more than food.  Cherish the moments, laugh at the chaos, and make memories where others might look at things like disasters.

Be Thankful.

It’s what we’ve got.

By Chuck Carr