Thanksgiving II: The Sequel

When I was growing up, an outsider would probably have considered my family’s Christmas an odd mixture of Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

Christmas dinner was a literal repeat of Thanksgiving, from the roast turkey down to the succotash, Boston brown bread and tray of mixed olives. I think this was because half my ancestors came to California from Massachusetts and Upstate New York, and at the time--over a hundred years ago--Puritan New England had only recently overcome its suspicion that Christmas was really a pagan Roman holiday. All specific Christmas eating traditions had evidently died off in New England by then.

But we drank eggnog at Christmas, and we didn’t at Thanksgiving. In fact, we didn’t drink eggnog at New Year’s, either--my family didn’t celebrate New Year’s, for reasons that were never explained to me. Both my parents came from nondrinking families, and possibly they had a lingering prejudice that New Year’s was just a squalid excuse to get drunk. (My folks did put rum in their eggnog at Christmas, but they practically measured it by the teaspoon.)

I realize my family doesn’t exactly sound like a crowd of party animals, but we did have fun. I swear we did. And if there’d been such a thing as a traditional New Year’s turkey, we’d have been there with the best of them.

MODERATE EGGNOG

1 carton packaged eggnog base

1/2 rum called for by recipe on carton

Grated nutmeg

Warm eggnog base, mix in rum, sprinkle with nutmeg.

Drink while eating peanuts, cashews and soft-center chocolates. Alternate with glasses of ginger ale. Makes moderate number of servings.