“Hello, Mr. Turkey wing,” I said. The turkey was silent. I kissed it. It was cold, frozen, thawing. “Come sit next to me at the fire,” I said. I carried over the turkey and sat it on my lap. A few minutes later I heard my mother’s voice. “Where is the turkey?” she said. By then the crotch of my pants was wet from the defrosting turkey. My mother said it would be my job to prepare the cranberry sauce. Our family has always bought the canned kind so I figured my job would be easy, but when I went to bed the night before I was restless. I won’t lie; I was nervous. I snuck downstairs and rumbled through the pantry for the cranberry can. When I found it I brought it to bed and slept peacefully. In the morning I awoke refreshed, but found calamity in the kitchen. Someone had lost the can opener. “My cranberry sauce will be ruined,” I said. “There’s a hacksaw on the workbench,” said my father. There were supposed to be steamed carrots, but someone forgot to boil the water and we just ended up with soggy orange sticks. We gave them to my dog, but he got sick and stopped eating before he even finished his second bowl. There was supposed to be pie too, but it disappeared like the can opener. We suspected my uncle until we noticed my dog slinking away with a grin on his face. It was almost like he couldn’t help laughing at our disappointment. He must have been faking it when he said he was full off of carrots. My father was in charge of the potatoes. He often liked to quote himself and refer to his potatoes as the best in town. They were usually lumpy and one year he had gotten them to taste like spoiled melon. There was hope this year though, at least until he accidentally dropped the whole container of cream into the pot. “This fucking stove,” he said and kicked the stove. It isn’t entirely clear why my father saw the stove at fault in this scenario. A bunch of my little nephews thought it would be a good idea to take the stuffing out of the turkey and replace it with something. There was a vote. It came down between Legos and food waste from the compost. The compost surprisingly won the vote and the little cousins gathered up lettuce stems and egg shells. They somehow got in the kitchen and made the switch without anyone knowing. I saw them do it. I was older, but I saw no reason to spoil their joke. There was a football game on tv. Someone scored a touchdown. This person was excited which made me excited. As I result I found myself doing a celebratory dance on the dining room table as the family said grace. review by Mark Baumer