Page 12 - December 2019
P. 12
FROM THE DESKDESK
HOLIDAY MUSINGS
PJ Kleffner, DTM
Program Quality Director
The connection between food and holidays was the floor. I was horrified!
clearly reflected in the theme for our last two As she picked the turkey
meetings at Babble-On Toastmasters. Last week up and put it back on the
it was “Dinner” and this week “Desserts”. I’m platter, she turned to me and
trying to pace myself, but we’re about halfway growled, “Keep your mouth
between Thanksgiving and Christmas as I write shut. What they don’t know won’t
this, and it feels like I’m losing the battle. As I hurt them.” In that moment, my
told someone this afternoon, “My fat pants are illusions of the perfect homemaker
now my regular pants.” were shattered, but I was secretly
Big holiday meals are a tradition for most of amused as I watched my somewhat
us. My mother grew up on a farm in Wyoming germophobic older brother eat
in the era when girls took sewing and home turkey that had been on the kitchen
economics classes so they could grow up to be floor minutes earlier.
good housewives and homemakers. My mother It occurred to me that “what they
excelled in this regard. She made a lot of our don’t know won’t hurt them” is a lesson we learn
clothes when I was young, and she could turn in Toastmasters. If we make a mistake, or leave
out an amazing feast that was fit for a king. We something out during a speech, the audience
couldn’t fit all the food and people around the doesn’t know – unless we tell them! In most
kitchen table, so we started having our holiday cases, they have no idea what we meant to say
meals in the living room. My father put a 4 x or do, so they have no idea that we messed it up.
8-foot sheet of plywood on the table, which my Another memorable Thanksgiving was a
mother cleverly decorated with tablecloths. bit more catastrophic. My father managed a
One Thanksgiving when I was about ten butcher shop, and he brought home a couple of
years old, everyone was gathering to eat, and the old butcher blocks when they bought new
I happened to be the only other person in the ones. It was a bit crowded with both of them
kitchen as my mother was transferring a huge in our kitchen and my mother mentioned that
turkey from the pan to a serving platter. The we should move one of them to the basement.
turkey hit the platter and slid right off onto Without our knowledge, or asking anyone to
12 ONE COMMUNITY
