From food to inside jokes, these traditions spell out Thanksgiving for mid-Missourians

Often we talk of traditions as if they are naturally understood, even universal.

But holiday recollections remind us that traditions are as personal as the people living them out — simple and sometimes braided strands of family, food, nostalgia and finding your own warm light.

Ahead of Thanksgiving, we asked a few mid-Missourians — plus myself — to share a few thoughts about their own holiday traditions. Here are the rich tales they passed along.

The tradition of great stories to tell

Sometimes an oral tradition forms at and around the Thanksgiving table: an inheritance of anecdotes, one-liners and inside jokes as sumptuous as any late-November meal.

When Columbia writer Sarah Medcalf discusses Thanksgiving, the hilarious and heartfelt instantly emerge. One of six kids, she played her part within "a big Catholic family in a small house in Wyoming, with my Irish immigrant dad and quietly brilliant mom," she said in an email.

"We squeezed eight people around a small kitchen table, pulling in the living-room party bench to successfully seat everyone," Medcalf added. "Wyoming Novembers are cold, so the windows always fogged and insulated our chaos from the outside world."

Stories that are distinctly hers and her family's unlock consonant tales nearly any family could relate to. Quotable children. Gleeful goading and "fibbing" from the grown-ups. How one year's request to pass the bread ended up with a dinner roll smacking her father between the eyes like one of David's pebbles — and the eventual laughter "shaking the small house."

"The stress of the holiday sparked each of our fuses throughout the day, but the blow-ups and arguments of years past always made their way into family lore," Medcalf said.

With her father entering "his last days of life," this Thanksgiving arrives with a different sentiment and spirit.

"I’m trying to make peace with his impending passing, and though the waves of grief often catch me off balance, I know that I’m in a very special time with my little family. So I keep telling the stories," Medcalf said.

Fresh stories attend the growth of her own family, of memories made with her husband and son.

"Things are much simpler for the family I’ve made. Our home comfortably holds us. We have different ideas about what we want from holidays, and our family is small enough to include our kiddo in the planning and execution of our special days," she said.

A first married Thanksgiving included a debate over which is the "butt end of the chicken — which end was more visually offensive — and why Rob so rudely pointed it at me."

"I still draw visually offensive roast chickens on love notes to him," Medcalf added.

Folding a child into the festivities creates a lovely sense of more: more presence, more personality, more to remember and hold tight.

"Things have only become more silly, joyous and fun as he has grown, and I’ve realized deviating from family tradition can be a radical act, and that building new traditions can be revelatory," Medcalf said.

"Things I assumed were set in stone are not, and you are allowed to take apart your ideas and traditions and use only the parts you like. I’ve realized that seemingly terrible moments can, with time, become memories that fill my heart and reaffirm my love."

Perhaps the most beautiful aspect of these stories are the promises they make: to remain, to create their own echoes with time and togetherness.

"I do not know what this year will bring, but come what may, there will be stories to tell and memories to make with my dearest people, and for that, I’ll be forever grateful," Medcalf said.

When change is the tradition

Sometimes change is the tradition.

Growing up in Lebanon, Missouri, Tina Casagrand Foss remembers living in the Thanksgiving house, the place where family gathered.

"Cooking would start at least a day early, and we'd always have turkey and ham ready at some odd time like 2 in the afternoon," the University of Missouri alum and founder of The New Territory magazine said in an email.

Growing into her own life, Casagrand Foss finds that miles traveled, minor revolutions across the American map, form a new sort of tradition. Often, work has called her husband away in late November.

"At least one year he was away fighting wildfires in North Carolina, and another he was building treehouses on an island," she said.

She estimates they have been Thanksgiving hosts once in nine years as a couple. And so together has become less of a place, more being in the middle of people you cherish.

Gathering with full hearts

When a gathering is truly welcoming, Thanksgiving allows us to bring all of who we are to the table.

Nina Mukerjee Furstenau, one of our moment's great food journalists — who happens to live in Columbia — distinctly remembers her parents, who grew up in India, adopting the holiday "with enthusiasm" by the time she moved through grade school.

Thanksgiving staples found a home at her family's table — as did their immediate community.

"Because holidays in India were always a time for community, they included our elderly neighbors each year to make it feel like celebrations they were used to," Furstenau said in an email. "My mother had us dress up, and she used her silver-edged plates, lace tablecloth and candles."

Thanksgiving, at its best, comes with a simple charge — though one that's not always easy to fulfill. But Furstenau sees it with clarity.

"I love Thanksgiving because the expectation is to gather and share beloved foods. I especially appreciate the idea of gratitude for what our land provides," she said.

For the journalist, who is always tasting and tracing how food unites and distinguishes us, the holiday also comes with a desire to more fully understand Native American history, she said.

Thanksgiving 2023, as Furstenau anticipates it, will offer a chance for respite and a remembrance of all that brings us together.

"I’m looking forward to sitting at our home table, much less formal than in my mother’s day and which now includes a vegetarian main dish for some of us, and taking a deep breath surrounded by family — it’s just glorious," she said. "I also look forward to the day after Thanksgiving when I have traditionally made an Indian meal with the delicious flavors I grew up with, and sending up love to my family farther away."

'It's all about the Chex Mix'

Large, labor-intensive feasts don't have to define holiday memories.

"It's all about the Chex Mix, baby!" former Tribune lifestyle editor Caroline Dohack said in an email, recalling a childhood custom.

"Growing up in the Ozark foothills, we always got the entire week before Thanksgiving off school to observe the high holy holiday that is Deer Season," she said.

Since her family committed the relative heresy of not hunting, they filled their time with jigsaw puzzles and other indoor pursuits.

"My mom would make huge batches of Chex Mix in her roasting pan, and we'd snack endlessly on that crunchy, savory melange of cereal, nuts and pretzels," Dohack said.

Now a familiar, somewhat unmoored, feeling settles around mid-November.

"I should not be sending my kids to school. I should not be logging into work. Don't they know it's Deer Season?" Dohack said.

She carries over the tradition — and gently, flavorfully pushes back against the sensation that something's missing.

"My husband and our children know that when the temperature dips I'll be getting out my roasting pan and mixing up a batch of our favorite seasonal treat," Dohack said.

Tradition in the leftovers

Though nowhere near best, I save my story for last since, my family's truest tradition doesn't take place on Thursday, but in the days after.

Honoring the flavors native to their home state of Arizona, years ago my parents started shredding leftover Thanksgiving turkey for an abundance of enchiladas. And my little Missouri-based family of 3 hasn't hesitated to keep the kitchen open.

To fill the enchiladas, we typically mingle the turkey with cheese, chilis and a few generous spoonfuls of the red sauce which will surround the entire dish. Though depending on whether you're using white or dark meat, and how the meat was seasoned, a green sauce — my typical favorite — might work just as well.

Leftover turkey sandwiches are great, but these enchiladas give me a reason to anticipate Thanksgiving and keep the gratitude alive at least through the holiday weekend. The flavors are their own promise, their own story about what it means to gather and enjoy.

Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. He's on Twitter/X @aarikdanielsen.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Food, travel, inside jokes form Thanksgiving traditions for Missourians