Turkey, Chrysanthemums, and Cluelessness

Today is the day before Thanksgiving here in America, and this year, it’s the twenty-fourth of November. In Asia, the twenty-fourth is Chrysanthemum Day.

Don’t ask me how I know that.

See, Mom, Dad, my brother Travis, my sister Cassie, and I love to travel. We have always gone somewhere new and exciting on every school break as long as I can remember. Every year, each one of us individually researches one place we really want to go – finding the main attractions, the best restaurants, the top hotels, et cetera. Then we present our findings to the whole group, and then we all plan out, based on the climate and number of tourists in each season, when we should go where. Thanksgiving Break was mine this year, but Mom and Dad had sat us down in June and told us that unexpectedly, something had come up – I still didn’t know what, five months later – and we wouldn’t be able to go anywhere this year, at all. I was sad – and angry. I wanted to travel, to go to Asia.

So for the first time in my life, I was stuck at home, with nothing to do, on the most boring vacation of my life, while my best friend, Ingrid, is in Costa Rica with her family. Go figure – Ingrid never travels, and the one time I don’t travel, she does. And just to put the frosting on the worst baked cake in the history of the world, my least favorite, totally clueless aunt, Maree, was coming for dinner tomorrow.

“Keaton,” Dad called up the stairs, “Dinner is ready!”

“’Kay, Dad, be right there!” I yelled back.

I jumped off my bed and sprinted down the stairs, my long red hair flying behind me.
…
Dinner was the usual boring affair… NOT! For once, as if they knew how frustrated and sad I was, the rest of my family went out of their way to make me laugh. Or maybe they just noticed that the table was very, very, very quiet. Typically, I chatter on and on like my jaw is completely unhinged from my brain, while the rest of my family nods and smiles like my babbling makes sense. Not this time. I just picked at my food, pushing it around my plate, even though I usually loved eating the global cuisine we’d collected recipes of over the years.

“Well,” said Travis conversationally, “you’re quiet today, Keaton.”

“Really?” I asked sarcastically. “I hadn’t noticed. Oh, wait, I forgot I was communicating telepathically today. Right. I was concentrating so much, I forgot that I wasn’t talking out loud.”

By the way, I tend to get sarcastic and snappy when I’m anything but calm. My siblings are used to it.

“Geez, Keaton. Are you sick?”

I stared at him. Let me rephrase that last thought a bit: Cassie is used to it. A certain sixteen-year-old boy, apparently, is not.

“Ow! What was that for?!” Travis yelped indignantly, glaring at Cassie.

A small smile tugged up the corner of my mouth. Cassie’s patented ‘Please get a clue, Travis. You just overlooked the obvious’ kick in the shin had just hit its mark.

She turned to me with an apologetic smile, though why she was apologizing for Travis, I didn’t know.

“So, Keaton, remember that time in England when we went to the Tower of London and Travis wanted to experience what they did to the prisoners back in the day, only he was joking, and the tour guide thought he was serious and started to cart him off to the dungeon? Oh, and the time in China when Dad asked for directions and nodded and smiled and agreed with the guy who told him where to go, and then the second he was gone admitted to us that he didn’t speak Chinese?"

I love Cassie; she always knows just what to say. I started to laugh.

“And the time in Rocky Mountain National Park when the sign told us not to take a left turn, and we all said, ‘Yes, we know not to take a left turn, because we’d all fall off a cliff if we did’?” Mom asked.

“Or the time when…”

They went on like that for the rest of dinner, recalling the funniest experiences we’d had on our trip, until I was feeling better.
…
The next day dragged. I finally found out why we couldn’t travel for the rest of the year: One of Dad’s friends, a lawyer, needed him to testify for some case he was covering involving tomato plants (I kid you not – the case really did involve the lovely fruit). There was supposed to be several trials and other legal stuff happening at least once a week starting in December, and according to the lawyer, Dad needed to prepare for months in advance.

Anyway, Aunt Maree was about to arrive, and Cassie, Travis and I had all been getting ready in Cassie’s neat, pristine bedroom. We have this theory: If we ignore her and act all adult, Aunt Maree will stop coming for dinner.

So Cassie, unlike her usual sporty self, was wearing a short black skirt, makeup, and a light grey sweater that made her red hair and green eyes stand out amazingly well. Travis was going for the formal-sporty-high-school-boy look, which, as it did every year, utterly failed. I mean, honestly, you can’t wear a grimy football jersey with spotless, low-hanging khaki slacks, Italian golf shoes and a backward baseball hat. Which we tried, as we do every single year, to tell him, Mom and Dad included. His famous, annoying, annual response?

“Oh, come on, you guys. I look very grown up, and besides, in case you haven’t noticed, the dirt brings out the brown in my eyes, the khaki is essential, and the black helps to bring out the brown of my hair.”

Travis is the only one of our family who doesn’t have green eyes and red hair. None of us is sure how that happened; maybe some deceased relative of ours looked like that.

I was wearing a light pink skirt, white slippers and a red sweater with white embroidery. Very pretty, and I hated it.

DING-DONG!

“Oh, that must be Aunt Maree. Let’s get this over with,” sighed Cassie.

We tromped down the stairs, with me in the lead. I put my hand up to stop my older siblings.

Very quietly, I opened the door and cautiously put my head into the living room. Aunt Maree was there, of course.

I stepped inside. Travis and Cassie followed.

“Hi, Aunt Maree,” we chorused disinterestedly.

“Hello, darlings. My, you’ve grown so! I haven’t seen you in so long!” she said sweetly.

We all groaned.

“You just saw us two weeks ago,” I said in a monotone.

“At that Belgian restaurant,” Cassie reminded her.

“You had the carbonnade,” Travis told her.

“Oh, so I did…” Here she paused. “Did you want to see the toys I brought you?”

See what I mean? The comments are silly. I used to think it was funny, but it’s just plain annoying these days. Aunt Maree just doesn’t see us getting older every year. But by now, we know better than to correct her.

“Yes,” we said exasperatedly.

After a lengthy round of ‘Annoy the Children,’ we sat down to dinner. I wasn’t actually sure what we would be eating. I’d heard of a traditional Thanksgiving meal, of course, but I had never actually had one. That tends to happen when you haven’t ever been in America for this holiday. They don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Tahiti.
I guess I shouldn’t have been astonished when Mom brought out mashed potatoes, peas and onions, cranberry sauce, gravy, stuffing, and a turkey. It was just…so American. I’d been raised on out-of-the-country cuisine, like the Russian food soleniye ogurscy (that’s salted cucumbers, in case you were wondering). I don’t think I’ve ever had a hamburger. So yeah, I was a little shocked to be eating what seemed to me an extremely normal American dish. I could see that Cassie, Travis, and even my Dad were eyeing their food doubtfully. Only Aunt Maree was digging in like there was no tomorrow.

Well, here goes nothing, I thought to myself. I took a bite.

Surprisingly, it was delicious, even to my exotic tastes. It took me very little time to eat my entire meal, and then I just enjoyed being with my family. But when Mom carried out the pumpkin pie, I found that I was stuffed. For that reason I made my excuses and left the table. I wandered into the living room and sat on the couch, looking out the window directly opposite me.

Outside, tiny individual snowflakes are falling. As I watch the snow, something dawns on me.

Yesterday was Chrysanthemum Day. Today, it’s Independence Day in Suriname, but it’s also Thanksgiving here in America.

Yesterday, I wanted to be in Asia, celebrating Chrysanthemum Day. Today, I’m happy to be here, celebrating – for once – an American tradition…with my family.