Jonna Carter: We gather together

My mother was the Thanksgiving Nazi. The meal was a production of no small magnitude, and participation in the preparation was mandatory. For my mother, Thanksgiving was the gigantic mid-afternoon feast. She reveled in the glory of her meal, an annual testament to the matriarchal household over which she presided and at which she excelled. Thanksgiving was her favorite holiday, and she’d be darned if it wasn’t going to be everybody else’s.

The rest of us wanted to run over to the college tennis courts where the nets remained up and students had gone home for break. As many families play football on Thanksgiving we played tennis, and it was no tamer. Contusions, lacerations, the occasional black eye or torn tendon ... Carters are nothing if not competitive. My mother, though, is not a tennis player. She’d glare at my father and instruct him to have us back at the house by a certain time. Upon our return tensions were high and we dared not cross her. Tasks were doled out: slicing, stirring, rolling out pie crust, pulling out the fine china, sterling silver, weighty goblets and table linens and setting the formal dining table per Emily Post.