Thanksgiving: The Annual Test of Your Patience, Plumbing, and Sanity

By Victoria Cuore

Thanksgiving always begins with the best intentions. You wake up thinking you will have a peaceful morning. You picture yourself sipping coffee, maybe watching a little of the Thanksgiving Day Parade, humming as you start the turkey like you are starring in a holiday commercial. It is a sweet fantasy that lasts until you step into the kitchen and realize the turkey is still half frozen and the roasting pan has mysteriously disappeared. This is the moment you remember what day it is. Not a holiday. A full-scale performance with you as the director, producer, stage crew, and lead actress.

While you are elbow deep in herbs and hope, the doorbell rings. Ready or not, here they come. The crazies, also known as the in-laws, provide their yearly dose of judgment, criticism, and the kind of opinions that roll in faster than the dinner rolls ever will.

Aunt Linda enters first because she always does. She walks in mid-sentence, hugging you with one arm while her eyes scan your kitchen like she has been hired as the health inspector. She takes a deep breath and announces that something smells different this year. She does not say if it is good or bad. Just different. She gives you the look of a woman who has opinions and plans to share all of them by noon, and it is already 11:18. ARGH!

Your cousin arrives right behind her, carrying a dish that is so tightly wrapped you wonder if she used industrial tools to seal it. She whispers that it might be a little spicy. You lift the foil just enough to peek, and your eyes immediately water. You ask if she used peppers. She says no, but her husband helped her cook, so now you understand.

The kids burst into the house next. They never walk. They charge in as if the starting gun just went off. A shoe flies across the floor. Someone is already sticky. Someone is already crying, and tracks dirt over your freshly mopped floors. One of the kids is already asking if the turkey is done, even though you haven't even basted it yet. They race from room to room like tiny caffeine-powered comedians with no sense of danger or boundaries.

Then the men arrive. They walk in like they are entering a peaceful retreat. Someone says it smells incredible. Someone else says let me know if you need help while walking away from you toward the living room. They find the television remote within seconds. It's amazing how fast they can do that, but they struggle to find their way to take out the trash. Football comes on, and suddenly, they are unavailable for anything except eating the snacks you bring to them.

Meanwhile, the real battle begins in the kitchen. People start gathering in there even though you have told them you need space. One person opens the fridge and just stands there looking, and does not get anything. Just looking. Someone else relocates your spoon and puts it behind a plant. Someone else lifts the lid off your perfectly simmering pot and releases all the steam you've been holding in. Then your aunt asks if the turkey is supposed to look like that.

And of course, right when the kitchen is at maximum chaos, the plumbing decides to test its own holiday stamina. A drain makes a noise no drain should ever make. A toilet flushes slower than your patience can allow. You stand there silently begging the universe to let the pipes make it through the day because you cannot handle one more crisis. Not today!

By the time the turkey comes out of the oven, you feel like a champion gladiator emerging from battle. The golden skin glistens. You lift it proudly. The family gathers as if you are presenting a royal jewel. Someone claps. Someone gasps. A child tries to poke it with a fork, and you nearly turn into a dragon.

Everyone finally sits down. This moment should feel peaceful. It does not. Your uncle complains that the room is too warm. While your cousin says it is too cold. Your mother-in-law opens a window. Then, crash, a plate drops. Your niece knocks over her juice. And then your husband sneezes near the green beans, and you pretend you did not see it because you no longer have the emotional capacity to care.

Dinner lasts fourteen minutes. Fourteen. You cooked for seven hours and watched it disappear like a magic trick. The kids inhale everything except the vegetables. The adults eat until they lean back in their chairs with dramatic sighs that make you wonder if they are acting or genuinely struggling to breathe.

Once the plates are empty, everyone scatters. The kids run off sticky and loud. The men migrate back to the television. The relatives wander into the living room for round two of uninvited advice and unsolicited life updates.

And you head to the kitchen, where Mount Dishmore is waiting for your arrival. It is tall enough to have its own weather system. You stare at it, take a deep breath, and begin. Yet in the middle of all the mess and chaos and noise and exhaustion, you catch a glimpse of something real. The cousins are laughing in the other room. The kids are playing. The grandparents share stories. The smells that will stay in your walls for days. The warmth that fills your home so completely that it settles into your chest.

Because even though Thanksgiving tests your patience, your plumbing, and your basic will to live, it also creates the moments your family will remember forever. The kids will remember the laughter. The excitement. The smells. The warmth. They will not remember that Aunt Linda judged the gravy, or that the potatoes were lumpy, or that the dog stole a roll. They will remember home.

And later, when the last dish is washed, the leftovers are tucked away, and you finally collapse onto the couch with a piece of pie you earned more than anyone else in the house, you will feel it too. The soft, tired, glowing kind of gratitude that comes from doing something challenging and loving every crazy second of it. You survived it. You did it beautifully. You are the real Thanksgiving miracle, even if no one writes that on the calendar.