The Joy of Feasts

Living so far from the country I will always call home, I have come to love a feast: how the refrigerator must be reorganized to accommodate half-meter long celery and outrageously large cuts of meat; how the girls decorate the house, tying Christmas ribbon to banisters and arranging balloons like cushions on the couch; how my husband develops a compulsive need to vacuum and how the dog hovers as I begin to cook, hoping for scraps.

And when friends arrive in oven mitts clutching casseroles still warm from the oven and the house begins to smell like roast beast, my cheeks start to ache from smiling. And in the last minute havoc—as the gravy thickens when almost all hope is lost and the cork finally gives without breaking—I am grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.