Thanksgiving: Appropriate or Appropriation? — Nicole Sallak Anderson
Growing up, I looked forward to Thanksgiving more than any other holiday, for it was the one time each year my entire family gathered. My mother and father’s siblings along with all the cousins would descend upon our house and mayhem would ensue. My mom worked for days, if not weeks, in the kitchen preparing, and all the sisters brought some sort of side or offering. As a kid, I recall loving the event because I always had a delightful story to tell afterwards. There was the one year my cousin Nathan ate my sister’s goldfish, he was only two, and another time, a decade later, when my cousin David and twentysomething Nicole danced with our grandmother Marian to “Shakedown Street” all three of us totally drunk on wine and the joy of life.
In my thirties, it became clear that my mom was growing tired of hosting the event, so my husband and I took over the feast. There were many missteps, especially when it came to the turkey. One year, my husband got it so wrong, the bird was five hours late, all the appetizers were gone, and everyone was drunk beyond belief (see picture above). We are of Polish descent, after all. I also remember our hosting days with great fondness for there were little ones, the cousins’ kids now playing with one another. The bonfires were always epic, my father would spend all fall creating his pyre and my…
