“Currier and Ives” is more like “Blurrier and Hives”

Thanksgiving (TG) 2018 is in the record books.  A full week of rainy, 37 degrees has passed and I think, I’m not 100% sure, but I think that I’ve finally put away all my Thanksgiving “stuff” (Sorry, Mrs. Emmerman) until next year, which judging by how quickly TG 2018 showed up, TG 2019 should be here in about another 6 weeks!  Was 2018 a total blurrr? Youbetcha!!

TG is a ton of work, a chunk of do re mi, mixed with a bit of chaos, but the memories made are priceless, at least in our Dunn-Scott home.  We are blessed and have gladly hosted TG for my Dunn side for many years now, mainly to give my dear Mom a freakinfanelli break after her DECADES long streak of hosting it!  I have never, however, been able to replicate her delicious gravy (or is it sauce?! Lol,)  I call it gravy and mine stinks.  Hers is the best.  I told her last week, she can never croak, cuz we need her to make the gravy!!!  If TG consisted of just hot buttered rolls and my mother’s gravy, I would be happy.

I have to admit, us DUNNs do TG better than Christmas, probably because we’re better eaters than present givers, besides, thank God, nobody needs anything, but we do need to eat!! Like gluttons!! Ok, that’s not true.  However, if eating were a sport, then us DUNNs would be all-stars on the Varsity Eating team.  Not sure who the Captain would be, it might be a toss up between Billy and Joe.  Both bring their A+ game to every meal not just at TG!  Poor Billy even has a handicap, he “lacks toes”,  hahaha, I mean, he’s one of those lactose intolerants, but that does NOT slow him down!! You’re welcome for those non-dairy POTatoes, Billy, …or were they?!!!  🧐😉.  Was it YOU who broke the toilet seat???!!!

Several years ago, Joe’s sister, MaryBeth, introduced us to the “high stakes” (jk)  dice gambling game of LCR = Left, Center, Right.  It is now a yuge TG tradition at our house almost as much as watching football.  I know, that is YUGE!  Anyway, this year Mom stuck around long enough to play the game with us and she even won! (Then, you’re right, she gave it all back!) Basically, the last person with any $ wins!! We play with quarters, but heck, one of these years, we might have to up the ante!  It’s a lot of fun.  Our sporty version requires some basketball shooting ability because when you roll a C for Center, you must lob, chuck, shoot, throw your quarter(s) into the stainless steel mixing bowl placed in the “Center” of the table, hoping not to plunk out any eyes or teeth on the other side of the table!  (Gotta share this laughable moment…this year right before dessert/pie, Joe nervously, whispered to me, “did you make the whipped cream IN the LCR bowl?”   😂😂😂, No!!!  I have more than one of those bowls.   Joe was totally serious, afraid of potentially having to chuck all the whipped cream.  His A+ eating game doesn’t stop at dinner, his dessert game might be an A++!

While growing up a DUNN, TG was truly a highlight of the year, especially during high school football games.  I’m not talking about the Morgan vs. Madison drama, I’m talking about how the H-E-doubletoothpicks did my mother pulled it off all by herself!!  First of all, TG morning, she’d feed everyone hot breakfast, etc, boys sometimes ate breakfast at the HS, sometimes BOTH places.  She’d clean up breakfast, set the TG table, make sure everyone got dressed enough hoping to alleviate frost bite and we’d get to the field well before the 10:30am kick-off.  Our green Chevy van would stop at the HS and before you knew it, someone would be asking, “Where’d (4y/o) Neil go?”  Who knows.  Jerry, go find your brother Neil and keep an eye on him.  Did he? Who knows.  My two younger brothers managed to stay alive without much parental supervision. Dad would usually be found holding one of the line markers until the year he got plowed over and broke a few ribs.  He then gave up being a line marker guy and would stand alone in the end zone, watching intently.  The wife of the head coach was very superstitious.  For some reason, she thought watching the opening kick-off would jinx the team.  So my Mom and a few other moms would lock her in a port-o-let until after the kick-off.  Anybody find Neil yet?  I kept team stats which got me a pass onto the sidelines, closer to the cute players. (Didn’t help much, I’m still waiting to be asked to a prom.)  Magically, after the game, we all managed to get home, somehow, in one piece, and literally blow threw the front door.  We’d drop everything as we walked into the house, and immediately someone would turn on the TV, why? to watch more football!!  Mom magically again, timed her delicious TG feast so that we could eat DURING halftime of the game on TV.   I do NOT know how she did it.  There was no “Alice from the Brady Bunch” home cooking during the game.  I’m guessing the turkey cooked while we were at the game.  Why the house didn’t burn down is beyond me.  Maybe Mom made several trips home to check on the bird and baste him.  Again, I don’t know.  And again, who watched Neil?  Jerry? Maybe.  Getting my drift? It was the 70’s and times were loose, crazy and yes, a lot of fun!  Bottom line, my Mom pulled off TG every single freakinfanelli year with very little help and never a complaint.  My TG memories are as blurry as my gravy, but unlike my gravy, they’re great!! (They were even better when Morgan won!)

Then came December.  Christmas was on deck.  YIPPIE!!  For us kids, December meant a constant surveillance of trying to sniff out where Mom hid the presents that year.  Us older siblings were the experienced kids with good present sniffing abilities, which is laughable, because our house was a 5 room ranch, 1 car garage, no cellar and no attic.  (The 4 boys slept in one room!  Billy always said, the boy’s room was so small, they had to go into the hall just to change their mind!)  There weren’t too many secret hiding places for those black plastic bags filled with wrapped presents. Once a sibling found the bags, they’d say so, but wouldn’t disclose the location.  “Not telling.”  Occasionally, he who won’t be named, would enjoy playing mind games on younger siblings, “I didn’t see any presents with your name on them.”  Nice guy.

One long standing tradition in the Dunn household was “We canNOT put up the Christmas tree until…….wait for it…..Christmas EVE!”  Oh yeah, not kidding, Christmas freakingfanelli EVE!  And, per Dear old Dad, (GRHS) it MUST be a tree complete with the roots.  Why is this?  Because feeding a family of 7 on a teacher’s salary back in the 60’s and 70’s did not leave much, if any, disposable income. Period.  Dad watched every single penny.  If he was going to spend money on a tree, he was not going to buy a tree that he could then NOT plant.  Yes, the two yuge evergreen trees that use to flank 16 Park Dr. were our 1st and 2nd Christmas trees, circa 1960 and 1961.

Let me just tell you that if and when Billy reads this, he might break out into a sweat.  This “must have a tree with all the roots” used to be fun when Dad bought an already balled tree from Fonicello’s.  It was hard to watch Mom and Dad drag it in the house because it weighed a ton.  Eventually, Dad realized that he could save a few buck$ by having his two strapping young sons dig it up themselves.  Cue: Christmas music!  🎶.  From then on, we’d head over to someplace (I think) on Nod Road to get our tree.  This “let’s-go-pick-out-our-Christmas-tree-as-a-family-Currier-and-Ives-moment” was probably one of the worst days of our lives…Why? Because for whatever reason, no time, everyone had practice or a game, etc, etc, we wouldn’t get around to picking out/ digging up a tree until Christmas EVE.  Of course, by now, all the “good” trees were taken.  I’d cry every single year because the boys could care less what the tree looked like, they just wanted to get one closest to the car (less dragging) then get the H-E-doubletoothpicks out of there!!!  But not without calling me names a few millions times, hitting me with a few snow balls, and finally telling me to shut up and stop crying because I wasn’t doing the digging.  “All right, I’ll stop crying, but I hate that tree!”  I vividly remember the last time we did this as a family, the boys committed a mortal sin.  While Dad was talking to the owner, the boys made the decision themselves to cut down the (*@&#) tree.  “We had to Dad, ground too frozen, and besides, we busted both shovels!!”  (OMG!!)  Dad was none too happy, probably more so because they broke his shovels!  Have you figured out the next part of this story?  If you said, “good luck finding a tree stand on Christmas Eve,” then you’re the winner, winner, chicken dinner!  We had never needed one before.  I’m getting a little vaklempt just writing this.  Billy, how ya doing?  No SVT, right?  Inhale, exhale.  Ahhhh, it’s the most wonderful time of the year! 🎶😡🥵😤

During the 70’s the word “inflation” was heard a lot.  In our house that word translated into the parental warning, “Christmas is going to be NIL this year.”  What?!! That’s right, inflation has even hit Santa!  But you know what? Never did I feel we received any less because of inflation.  Maybe because we didn’t have much to begin with, anything we got was great!  I’m guessing we all did that subtle surveilling of all the presents, seeing who got what.  It wasn’t until both boys got bikes that I kind of remember thinking, “Cool, bikes!!….hey, wait a minute!!”

Hives? Yes, hives, or really more like an allergic reaction (but allergic reaction doesn’t  rhyme with Ives!) .. Let me splain.  One of those two tall evergreen trees in front of the house had Christmas lights on it all year long.  Genius. Tree grows, so go the lights!  The lights were only plugged into extension cords and turned on AT Christmas.  This one year, we figured out that one of the top sets of lights wasn’t working.  Neil was now old enough to climb up inside the tree, close to the sappy trunk, and had to drag another set up and decorate the highest point of the tree.  This escapade took hours.  The next morning, Christmas morning, (did you think we’d decorate before the 24th??) poor Neil’s face was so red and swollen.  His eyes were slits.  He was totally unrecognizable.  I guess he could breath, because I don’t remember him not breathing. Maybe he was taken to the doctors, don’t remember. What I do remember was a washcloth that my Mom cut out eyes, a nose and a mouth.  Neil used that as a wet, cold compress on his face all day long.  The littlest kid in the family, the one looking forward to Christmas the most, was miserable.  Poor kid, I really felt so sorry for him.  Weird thing, nobody knew why he was all swollen.  It wasn’t until a year or two later that he was crawling around the back of somebody else’s station wagon that had left over pine needles in it.  Yup, he reacted again, same thing, swollen face, slits for eyes.  Is that wash cloth still floating around?  From then on, Neil was called PineNeedle…. and much to my older brother’s liking, (however, a tad late) my parents switched to fake trees!!!

Have a a blessed Christmas!!  Remember, Jesus is the reason for the Season!

Xoxo, Kate

November 29, 2018