Papa Bear and the Thanksgiving Traditions: Being a Slightly Fictionalized Account of Actual Events

Thanksgiving is perhaps the best holiday of the year, filled with many traditions in our house. The day goes something like this. . . .

Mama is up at 6 to put the turkey in. Back to bed briefly. Up at 7 to put the ham in. Showers. Takes the dog on a walk. It’s now 8 am. Time to make cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Slam the vacuum packs softly on the edge of the counter so as not to awaken an irritable male. Like a grizzly bear, the household male is hibernating, and, if awoken accidentally, is likely to come out of his cave in what could be called a “mood.”

Put the cinnamon rolls in the oven on the rack below the turkey and ham. Wash up dishes from the morning’s preparations. Get out the mixer, corn, corn meal, and other ingredients to make Mama’s Famous Corn Casserole. Mix ingredients thoroughly, according to the recipe.

Pull cinnamon rolls out of the oven and drizzle frosting over them. Set them on the counter, knowing that their scent will awaken Papa Bear as it wafts through the house. Put Mama’s Famous Corn Casserole in oven in space vacated by cinnamon rolls.

Sure enough, pretty soon Papa Bear makes the trek all the way down the hall to the bathroom, scratching, yawning, and making traditional bodily noises—some of which have a powerful odor that warns other forest creatures to stay clear. After completing mysterious activities in the bathroom for fifteen minutes, he emerges again. The activities are mysterious because when he exits the bathroom, he looks exactly like he did when he went in—hair like a bird’s nest, oversized T-shirt with a jelly stain on it from 2012, faded red flannel pajama pants that are three inches too short, black socks, and oversized slippers that scuff the floor annoyingly every time he takes a step.

Papa Bear sticks his head in the fridge and retrieves a gallon of milk, pours some in a glass, scoops four cinnamon rolls out of the pan (he’s cutting back this year), puts them on a paper towel and scuffs his way to the dining room table. This is an odd tradition, because by the time he reaches the table, all four rolls have been consumed. He sits down and over the next thirty-five minutes drinks the milk while checking his phone.

And now Mama is ready to pack the picnic basket so everything she makes can be taken to Grandma’s house for the feast. This is one of the last traditions of the morning—with a smile in her voice, she asks, “Honey, can you go to the shed and get the picnic basket?”

It’s also traditional for Papa Bear to get growly at this time. “I don’t know why we keep that stupid thing in the shed. It’s freezing cold outside! Why can’t we keep it in the house but put it somewhere people never go, like the laundry room?”

Mama has been married to Papa Bear for nearly forty years. She knows when to speak and when not to speak. This is a not-to-speak moment. However, if she were to speak, she might say something like this: “You never go in the laundry room! I spend three-quarters of my life there and three-quarters of my life in the kitchen and three-quarters of my life cleaning around the toilet! And if you will recall, I started asking you a week ago—a week ago!—to bring that stupid picnic basket in from the shed but you never did! So this is a problem of your creation, buddy! Not my circus, not my monkey!”

Papa Bear makes a growly sound and burps three times as he heaves his bulk away from the table. On his way out the back door, one of the dogs unexpectedly escapes, and Papa spends twenty-five minutes hollering and whistling to get her to come in again. When she finally does, Papa Bear returns to the kitchen, where Mama is removing the corn casserole—hot, golden, delicious-smelling—from the oven.

“That stupid dog!” Papa starts in. “She—”

“Where’s the picnic basket?” Mama says without turning around.

Papa kicks the leg of the dining room table on his way out again. It hurts horribly, but he is a man. He is stoic. He will not give in to pain. Once he’s in the hallway, however, he grabs his foot and hops around a little bit.

After another mysteriously long time, Papa returns with the picnic basket. “What took so long?” asks Mama as she masterfully extracts the ham from the oven.

“Started rearranging my tools. That place is a mess.”

“Uh-huh. You couldn’t find it, could you?”

Papa looks down and scuffs the toe of his slippered foot on the floor. He thinks this makes him look like a penitent little boy—a look calculated to shoot a dart of unexpected love and tenderness into his wife’s heart. He doesn’t take into account his overall appearance, which, no matter how penitent he would ever become, would fail to inspire unexpected love and tenderness in any woman’s heart.

“Thank you for the basket, honey. How about you go get your shower, and then we’ll go to Grandma’s? There’s my big boy!”

Hours later, as the women talk and laugh and wash dishes with loud clatters in Grandma’s kitchen, Papa Bear pushes the button to make his lounge chair recline and says to his brother-in-law, Lazy Bear, “Man, was I busy this morning—had to get the picnic basket out of the shed in the freezing cold even though I’ve got this sore foot. And on my day off! Wish she’d have told me a couple of days ago! But the wife said we ‘had to have it,’ so I did it just to maintain the peace—it’s pretty easy to set her off, you know! Other than that, though, it’s been a good day. Nothing to do but eat and relax and eat and watch football and eat and then take a long nap! No question, the nap is the best time of the day.”

Tradition dictated that Papa Bear start “the best time of the day” at halftime with a half-drunk bottle of root beer wedged securely between his pudgy thighs. But this year Mama—who heard what he said from the kitchen doorway and happened to have an iron skillet in her hand—helped him break the tradition—he started the best part of his day before the game even began.

HAPPY THANKSIVING, ALL!

Copyright 2022 by Steven Nyle Skaggs