Giving Thanks in Kaltag
- Prof C
- Nov 26, 2023
- 6 min read
Updated: Nov 26, 2023
The holiday season is upon us.
Even though our first major holiday here was Halloween, it's not a holiday that has held a lot of traditions for us. As such, even though it was different, there wasn't a lot of emotion connected to being in a new place at a key time. But anyone who knows us at all, knows how 90 % of our favorite family traditions are embedded in Thanksgiving and Christmas. A quick stroll through our facebook photos should be sufficient to see how much we enjoy this time of year, and how much of it was spent with friends and family. I know that's not uncommon for a lot of people, but many of these traditions for us are ones that started long before Philip and I were married, and carried over with our kids. Others were forged in year one of mine and Philip's marriage.
Thanksgiving this week was notably strange. We ended up having the three Thanksgiving meals I mentioned last week: the community potlatch, the staff dinner, and our own personal scaled down meal. The community gathering was fun, watching families interact, and come together with their own unique dishes (believe it or not, the no-bake Jell-O cheesecake is popular out here too!) The staff dinner was enjoyable, listening to stories of village life, and memories of childhood out here, which included several bears and moose encounters. There was a lot of laughter, which is always a good thing. That meal was where we put most of our culinary energy. We made a lot of our usuals, and brought home enough leftovers to carry over for the next day. My mom's Pink Stuff made its debut out here, first in my classroom, and then the staff dinner, and it was a big hit. I've joked with several people that she would be thrilled to know that she had a lasting culinary impact after all. (She always joked about her severe lack in cooking skills or the desire to cook.)
Speaking of Mom, this is the time of year I miss her most. It was her absolute favorite time, because it was the one time of year that she was always able to see her family. I remember from my childhood, the random Thanksgivings where my aunts, uncles and cousins would show up, and I always loved listening to them recount stories from their youth. (Even the stories mom didn't necessarily want me to hear...) It was the time of year that I saw her come most alive. For many years, she was the primary cook for our Thanksgiving feast, and there are many stories of kitchen mishaps over the years, including the turkey catching fire because of a dropped dish towel in the oven, or pushing dinner off by 3 hours because the oven was never actually turned on. The use of a mistaken ingredient that turned what should have been a dessert into a savory dish, and the way-overcooked potatoes that turned to mush, which marked the year that she finally passed the torch to Philip and I. It's this holiday that I feel her absence the most, and its always surprising when that melancholy sneaks up on me. I can only imagine what her thoughts would be about our move out here. In truth, I don't think it would surprise her at all.
Actual Thanksgiving Day this year was the most chill day we've had in quite some time. We slept in, turned on the parade, started a fire, made fun of some of the performances and the never-disappointing-full-of-great-material-to-make-jokes-about parade commentary, watched the Cowboys put a smack-down on Washington, watched the National Dog Show (...and were disappointed that Carson the Great Dane DID NOT WIN....), and ate Thanksgiving leftovers. We also commenced our Friendsgiving Marathon, and actually watched all of them in one sitting, with coffee and hot chocolate. We had so many leftovers, we pushed off our Chandler meal until the day after, but we did enjoy some freshly baked pumpkin snickerdoodles along with our leftovers. For anyone else out there who enjoys Chandler's version of Thanksgiving food (grilled cheese sandwiches and Funyuns), we discovered this year that dipping a well-made grilled cheese in homemade cranberry sauce is delicious. It also poetically shows the evolution of Chandler, from his first Thanksgiving of avoidance, to his last, where he finally joins in and contributes with his "Chanberries." (And no worries...no soap was used in the washing of our cranberries.)
It was a trade-off, this Thanksgiving. We definitely had concentrated family time, playing games and watching movies together. But it was quiet. With a lot of notable absences. The element of fun that is found in the chaos of the holidays was missing. We know it's a part of the decision we made to come out here, and this won't be forever. But just know all of you back home were missed, and we hope your holiday was full of laughter and love.
Our next notable tradition, one that was started the first year Philip and I were married, is our weekend-after-Thanksgiving trip to the tree farm. For the last 18 years, we've gone to the Elgin tree farm to pick out our tree, who in year one, we named Bob. (The product of an inside joke involving a billboard advertisement.) Every successive year, we found the next Bob, aptly numbered for that year. It was always a quest of course, to find the perfect Bob who would fill our living room with just the right dimensions. Some years were better than others, based on the growing season, and the number of tree farm visitors. We'd seen a lot of change at the tree farm, having been regulars for almost two decades. It was quite a bit smaller when we first started going, compared to the last year. I can't explain it, but for some reason last year, it felt like that would be our last year visiting the farm. Part of it was that the selection of trees were miniscule, and the prices were higher than ever. But there was some other sense of finality, one I couldn't explain at the time. Being here now puts that in perspective a bit.
Obviously, there are no tree farms out here. But of course, there doesn't need to be. Like that tree you see outside? Cut it down and bring it in. It's yours. For free. We live in a tree farm. But of course, our interior dimensions have changed quite a bit, so Bob the 19th is our smallest tree ever. Bigger than a Charlie Brown tree, but not our full and fat trees of yore. We essentially chopped the top half off of a juvenile white spruce, and even that was almost too big. The men chopped it down, and the women did most of the decorating. Philip made a base out of a birch stump, and filled in some gaps with some of the extra boughs we cut. I have to say, making most of the decorations, including our tree topper, makes this my favorite tree. I miss the storyline of Christmases that our bigger trees could display, with all of our collected ornaments back home, but looking at this little Bob we forged from scratch was immensely satisfying. We all worked together to provide the trimmings for this little tree, which is emblematic of our move out here. The ribbon and ornaments on the tree were sent by Joe and Brenda, and I love how they mesh really well with our natural theme, yet maintain the personalities of each of us. The ornaments were sent, with the challenge that the kids had to figure out which one was theirs, as well as Philip and I. They know us so well, it wasn't hard to figure out.
And of course, the other notable part of our tree farm tradition, was eating barbecue at Southside Market there in Elgin. It became a large family ordeal, and every year was a mathematical feat, trying to calculate how much of each menu item we would need for the varying crowd that came. In the last few years, it became a tradition for Papa Joe to buy the kids ice cream, which was their favorite part. To attempt to continue that tradition, we did a homestyle version here, where Philip made beans with ham, reindeer sausage (that we got from a local meat market in Fairbanks), potato salad, mac n' cheese, and then, our attempt to fill the ice cream gap. There is no Bluebell available out here, and as such, no Blue Monster, so Josh was missing his favorite. But Tillamook is a quality subsitution. The real fun lies in trying to get waffle cones out here. The picture below shows how difficult that is. But, we enjoyed our deconstructed waffle cone ice cream dessert to cap off our bbq meal.
All in all, even though it was different, we had a good Thanksgiving, and we're already looking forward to Christmas break. Thank you to all who have sent us care packages. We are grateful for each and every item that slowly finds its way to us. Box by box, we are able to make this place feel a little more like a home. The snowy trek to the post office is always a gamble, and it's thrilling when things finally make their way here.
To end, I'll leave you with photos of our wintry walk this week. We're still exploring the village, and still have far to trek. But I love feeling like I'm walking in Narnia, and the quiet of the woods is powerful indeed.
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