Thanksgiving is probably the quintessential holiday I associate with 1107 Hope Street — very traditional, very family-oriented, a little bit on the stodgy/unhip side, but certainly heartfelt.
I can still imagine the smell of a turkey roasting there, as well as the smell of baking bread rolls, one of my grandma’s go-to side dishes for fancy meals.
In fact, when I smell a turkey roasting (it doesn’t happen often), it usually makes me think of my grandparents’ house, more so than any other place where I have ever been in the company of a roasting turkey.
Perhaps it is odd, then, that Thanksgiving doesn’t seem to have inspired my grandpa to any great flights of fancy on 15 years of calendars.
No annual drawing of a turkey bewitched to a dark gold, or a jar of cranberry sauce, or an Indian and Pilgrim breaking bread together, or anything like that.
Still, Thanksgiving mentions of one form or another cropped up on various calendars over the years. We’ll take a look at a couple this week.
November 27, 1975. The “J’s” were my other grandparents who lived in Stamford. Sorry for the poor picture quality.
Thanksgiving 1974 has already been covered in a previous blog entry here. Dinner at the J’s on Thanksgiving; another dinner on Hope Street the next night; and my grandpa had laryngitis.
The Thanksgiving 1973 entry has a minor distinction in the world of this blog: The header image of Hope Street (“Heavy Frost,” “Frost,” etc.) is taken from my grandpa’s calendar entries of Nov. 20-22, 1973. Here’s the image in full.
November 20-22, 1973. Looks like I spent my first Thanksgiving on the road. I’ll be at home for this one, like the Detroit Lions.
From there we jump to Thanksgiving 1968. Not sure what motivated my grandparents to make punch, as boozy indulgence was not common in their house. Maybe it was for a church event.
November 27-28, 1968.
And that, believe it or not, is all I have.
I’m sure my grandparents’ Thanksgiving plans were referenced on the calendar each year. But I didn’t see fit to take pictures of them when I looked at the calendars, so they must not have been that interesting or revelatory.
Whatever your plans for the day and week are, I hope you enjoy them, and that they bring you some degree of warmth and comfort.
Leave a Reply