Who Made the Rules Anyway?

At the Island. Pull up a chair.  Stay a while.

As I write this, there are only about 10 weeks remaining in 2026.  I am trying to envision a Thanksgiving menu to coordinate with my sister-by-marriage.  You see, our respective widowed parents found each other a couple of years ago and married at the ripe old ages of 78 and 88.  At this stage of life, stitching together two families is quite interesting and requires a certain amount of reflection and consideration in terms of family traditions and the holidays.  What deserves to be honored and what can be respectfully laid aside without causing offense?  What needs to be added because a new(er) member of the family doesn’t care for about 85% of the meal on offer? Of course, negotiating traditions requires a certain willingness to compromise. After spending years preparing elevated versions of Thanksgiving dinner for other people, I am generally quite reasonable about such things.  

Generally.

I have reached an age where I feel perfectly comfortable questioning certain longstanding holiday traditions. I have also reached an age where I am perfectly comfortable declaring that some things have no business appearing on a Thanksgiving table.  Giblet gravy and marshmallow-covered sweet potatoes, for example.

Before anyone accuses me of hypocrisy, allow me to explain that my objections are entirely reasonable. Once you hear my story, yours, of course, may require further examination as well.

When I was growing up, my dad had a custom beef cattle feeding operation in addition to a small portfolio of other agricultural business ventures.  Sometimes twelve large pens of calves and assorted “damaged” bulls were being fed and cared for until they reached a certain weight.  At that point, they were sent on to the next phase of finding their way onto someone’s backyard grill or between the bun of a McDonald’s hamburger.  

On the main family holidays, he gave the employees the day off from feedlot duty, which, toward the end of the year could be cold, wet, daunting, and sometimes sad when disease hit the pens.  These were days my brother and I found special because if we went and helped Dad, we got rare and precious time alone with him.  One Thanksgiving morning, I went with Dad to do the rounds and we found a heifer whose uterus had evacuated its assigned location. 

There was dirt, gravel, and various other horrifying things sticking to this part of the anatomy that SHOULD have been INSIDE and not outside.  It was an undertaking of significant proportion to pick it up, make sure it was completely clean and well irrigated before putting it back.  Which means exactly that… PUTTING IT BACK by hand and then sewing the vulva closed until everything settled again.  This was not a full-grown cow by any means, so it was going to be safer for me, with my slimmer arm, to do the putting back.  Putting a glove on that goes all the way up the arm to the shoulder is one thing.  Taking a shifting organ and shoving it back into place through some significant muscle while Dad gave instructions and the patient bellowed her discomfort and displeasure while being FAR from still was quite the experience.  But that’s farm life, and that’s okay.  

We got home, showered, and changed for Thanksgiving lunch.  He and I were the last to the table, and about the time we sat down, one of my grandmothers or my mom set this clear glass, flower pot-shaped bowl full of giblet gravy between Dad and me.  All either of us could see were the chunks of giblet and chopped-up hard-boiled egg floating in this brown, murky soup.  Dad and I just looked at each other and groaned. All we could think of was the dirt- and gravel-encrusted calf uterus– something that, for propriety’s sake, we did not disclose during the meal. As you can imagine, giblet gravy has not passed my lips since, and to my knowledge, Dad never again partook of that condiment. 

For more than four decades, I've been perfectly willing to make a beautiful, silky brown turkey gravy. But there will be NO giblets and NO chopped-up hard-boiled eggs anywhere near it! 

My Dad has been gone nine years now, and my mother has remarried a wonderful man who considers giblet gravy an indispensable part of Thanksgiving dinner.  Although he is a farmer as well and completely understands the vagaries of farm life, Mom has expressly forbidden the telling of this story to the new branch of the family.

So the giblet gravy remains.

I don't eat it. Mom’s new husband enjoys it. Mom maintains diplomatic relations.

And last Thanksgiving, when that bowl makes its appearance, I remember a cold morning working cattle with my dad and a look we exchanged across the dinner table that needed no explanation.

Perhaps that's the thing about family traditions. We don't all have to love the same ones. Sometimes we simply make room at the table for what matters to someone else.

Although I maintain that marshmallows on sweet potatoes are indefensible.

-Kimberly Fehler

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