What happens when the hostess with the mostest passes the turkey day torch | members only

Sometime in the last few years, the turkey torch passed to the next generation. And I wasn’t ready. I loved the decades of Thanksgivings when everyone sat around my mahogany, pedestal-style

dining room table that had belonged to my mother. I liked making the corn pudding our special way — a recipe handed down through my family. I liked the haphazard group of people we always

had: the usual family and friends, as well as a mix of people from the office, church or our neighborhood who just needed a place to spend the holiday. One work colleague who lived alone

became a part of our holidays for eight years straight.  I even liked the imperfections that became holiday lore. The rookie mistake I made leaving the giblets in the bird. Or when the dog

licked the cheese off the salad (no comment on whether I served it). Or that year my husband, brother and I were maneuvering a whole turkey off the grill and dropped it on the ground in the

dark backyard (no comment on if we served that either).  And as long as I’m being honest, I admit I also liked the oohs and aahs I’d receive as a host when everything went just right. I felt

comfortable in my host role — preferring to work in the kitchen rather than make conversation in the living room. And then that feeling of accomplishment — sitting with a last glass of wine

at the end of the night, my feet on the coffee table, feeling like I had given everyone a pretty darn good time. When I hit my late 60s, I figured I had 10 more Thanksgivings to host — at

least! I thought the next generation wouldn’t get the turkey baster until they ripped it out of my cold, dead hands. But I should have paid more attention to my wonderful mother-in-law,

another longtime holiday host until she and her husband moved to be near grandchildren and the gathering shifted to our house.      When I started to host Thanksgiving, she would push back

at the end of dinner and offer to help clear. Then, she would pick up the butter dish, carry it to the kitchen, put it in the fridge and go back to the living room. "I'll just stay

out of the way," she would say. At the time, staring at a kitchen of holiday mess, I was annoyed. Why wasn’t she helping? But now, I get it. She was used to being the hostess in her

own way — in her kitchen, making her cranberry Jello salad (each individual mold carefully turned out on a piece of iceberg lettuce). But in my house, at my Thanksgiving, she wasn't

sure who she was — family, guest, someone in between? What were the rules? Could she hang out in the kitchen? Was clean-up expected or would she get in the way?