I was reading an article from The Guardian on how to deal with Christmas get-together challenges. The author led with “the turkey doesn’t fit in the oven.” [I love that turkey is the English Christmas dinner centerpiece, even though what they serve is a “New World” food, not actually indigenous to Europe. So are tomatoes, potatoes, what we call corn, and many squash and chilis. Often an “ancient” European, middle eastern, or Asian recipe includes an ingredient that simply was not available more than a hundred or a couple of hundred years ago—hardly ancient. When Shakespeare mentions “corn,” he does not mean the New World maize but another grain, probably barley.]

The article about the holiday dinner was funny and also spot on.

When Gary and I first lived together in a notorious small apartment building known locally as “Big Pink,” the oven was not big enough for the turkey. We’d moved in on a holiday, July 4th. By Thanksgiving, I should have understood that the tiny oven would not fit a 20-pound bird, but somehow I failed to notice until it came to putting that turkey into the preheated oven. It scraped the broiler element, but I shoved it in anyway. How did that go? It cooked. I also did my mother’s turkey, plus we ate in the afternoon with my in-laws. Thanksgiving was a massive overdose of tryptophan, an amino acid prevalent in turkey and know to cause sleepiness.

Otherwise that holiday and the roast at Christmas passed without incidents. My youngest brother-in-law had not yet been diagnosed schizophrenic. Gary’s middle sister was not yet an anti-vaxxer since she was just in her teens (she would later abuse me on Facebook for pointing out her fake anti-abortion scare meme because I had expressed my support of abortion rights when she “was a teenager”—so was I at that time). My brother was decades away from being diagnosed with a host of mental illnesses, all of which he claims are my fault because I teased him when we were little and then I was deliberately “better” than he was.

So it was unmemorable but celebratory, I have no doubt.

Zoe Williams, suggests solutions to twelve “disasters” associated with Christmas/holiday gatherings: the oversize-turkey-won’t-fit-in-the-oven issue, the new and unannounced vegan in the family, the anti-vaxxer (see above), the wacko relatives who are so very eager to announce their paranoid delusions (see above), the drunken uncle eager to share his outrages, the absurd inequity of gift giving (her example of the friend who gave one of her kidneys to her brother and received tights for Christmas puts my story to shame), the wifi is not working and you forgot how to live in company without it as an escape, guests who stay until 3am, a couple who are breaking up in the other room, your realization that your children have lost the fantasy spirit of the season, and a sudden and unexpected new lockdown.

She nailed it when she put “Your niece is suddenly vegan” in the headline. I scrolled through dozen of comments which were nearly all about the imaginary vegan niece who did not warn her aunt of her changed dietary requirements. Many comments were on the side of a vegan diet on various principles. Most, however, were furious that the niece failed to notify the host. How thoughtless, rude, inconsiderate, selfish, etc!

My first thought was that the imaginary niece’s parents probably knew and should have informed the host—I figure that is what is most likely, that the niece is young enough to accept that she must attend the family gathering—you can picture the argument that led to her attending, can’t you? the niece saying, Do I have to go? and her parents indignant and insistent? Some threats and a lot of guilt tossed about until the niece says, “Fine, I’ll go, but don’t expect me to eat any dead animals!” She’s young enough to assume that if information is required by the host, her own parents will provide it. In this scenario, the mother assumes this is another fad that her daughter will forgo when a plate of turkey is actually placed in front of her. Mom doesn’t warn the host because she thinks declaring her daughter’s veganism is silly.

And I believe in this entirely fabricated scenario because that’s how it played out for me years ago. My oldest friend dismissed my announcement that I had become a vegetarian as another “enthusiasm.” My mother was in flat-out denial. But I had been working toward a largely vegetarian-and-sometimes-pescatarian diet for three years by then. I was serious, and have remained serious about that choice since 1990. (Close contact with a feedlot, slaughterhouse, a lot of reading, understanding the damage done by our “modern Western” diet, and a desire to be both consistent and kind prompted my decision. Many of my students did their best to gross me out, but I had already seen worse.) This year we considered giving up even seafood entirely, but we have eaten wild-caught fish four times since last Christmas. So. Not quite there. And cheese. And baking with eggs.

All this to say, my sympathy lies primarily with the niece. (I did the math—the fictional hosts have young children, the fictional niece would likely be in her teens. I know a woman who gave up meat as a very young child when her favorite cow supposedly “jumped over the fence and ran away.” She was not fooled about that roast on the table.)

The article provided suggestions for maintaining good humor despite anti-vaxxers, obstreperous and pontificating uncles, and the screaming couple in the living room. Actually, she provided excellent advice, especially for dealing with an out-sized or undercooked turkey and various conspiracy theories floated around. Let them have their say. Don’t try arguing with evidence. They do not believe in evidence. Let the screamers fight it out, and then move on.

Yes, there it is: move on.

It’s been a tough year or two or six. We all deserve a party, and as one commenter noted, it’s not the easy holidays that we will laugh and talk about about for years, but the year the turkey didn’t fit in the oven. The year my brother received a tape recorder for Christmas and recorded mealtime conversation, which amounted to an hour of cutlery clinking on plates and “Potatoes?” (No conversation at all, which is where I admit that my parents liked taping conversations about intimate details in my life, as if I were lying on a therapist’s couch. Well. They were great parents, all told, but I could share details that would tell a different tale.)

And I will say that as a devoted baker and cook, we enjoyed our first real party in almost two years last weekend. Nine people in our tiny condo. Among us were omnivores and vegans, people sensitive to gluten, carrots, nuts, dairy, and sugar, and those willing to eat absolutely anything. I had three stations for food: 1. the largest group was all vegan, gluten-, dairy-, nut-, carrot-, and sugar-free crackers and chips and dips; 2. two dishes contained nuts and a Persian sauce made with pomegranate molasses and ground walnuts; 3. two dishes were the “bad” stuff for those willing and able to eat dairy, sugar, and eggs. Most often I love making even more than eating, but I made only the Persian dip, shortbread cookies, and a not-quite-Panettone with dried fruit. The Persian dish was one claiming to be an “ancient” recipe but included tomato—I used fire-roasted red chilis and it was wonderful. I bought most of what I served and it was worth the expense to serve what people would eat and I did not have to make. In the past I’ve prepared entire Thanksgiving meals without gluten, nuts, dairy, or eggs. I won’t be doing it again. Time to move on.