In an effort to brighten spirits at the start of the holiday season, I thought I’d share one of the most ridiculous moments of Schuster family lore.

It was 1989, the Thanksgiving of my freshman year at New York University, and I had returned home to Wilton, Connecticut to spend the holiday with my family—parents (David and Carlotta), maternal grandmother (Nina), and paternal grandmother (Celia, better known as “Cele”, who at the time was still more than capable of driving there herself from Cedarhurst, Long Island). I am lucky and forever grateful to have been raised in an environment in which the hardest part of the holiday feast was in the preparation, timing, and cleanup, not the conversation. We, and all the guests we invited, were aligned politically. Well, OK, except occasionally for one couple we knew who were Reagan Republicans, but they kept it to themselves when mixing at dinner. In the 1980s, it seemed like much less of a divisive moralistic issue. Little did we know. 

Anyway, I’m not saying my family is perfect. Of course the Schusters have had our share of family drama and frustrations, but mostly we put the “fun” in “dysfunctional”. The Thanksgiving meal was a time to eat, drink, and be messy, and since our Danish modern dining table from the 1960s had built-in extensions, we could stretch it to hold more than a dozen place settings, and welcomed the chance to do so. 

This annual family gathering extended to musician and theater friends from the Big Apple, as well as a couple of my dad’s chemistry students. That year would be the first time I also invited a couple of my new friends from NYU to join the festivities. 

The family shared cooking responsibilities. Mom made chestnut soup, and most of the sides, including corn soufflé. Dad made the stuffing, gravy, and turkey from a recipe he picked up from a family friend on the west coast named Eleanor Berman during his grad studies at CalTech in the 1950s (many times he threatened to try a new recipe and we always insisted that this was no time for improvisation). I was on cranberry sauce and pie/crisp duty. (The grandmothers, who cooked on many other occasions, had the chance to sit this one out.)

As I wrote here, my dad collects a little wine, and no doubt we were popping open some Russian River Valley bubbly from Iron Horse, good Bordeaux to accompany the meal, also maybe a Zinfandel red blend from Ridge in Sonoma, which was a family favorite, not only because it’s delicious, but one of the winery’s founders is another connection to dad’s CalTech era. 

The first big snow of the season had fallen the night before—powdery, cold, dense, classic—and the autumnal landscape morphed overnight into Winter in New England stock photo mode. Luckily our long driveway and the nearby country roads had already been plowed, and it was my job to shuttle the guests from the Metro North train station at the center of town (the students had already arrived, I think). Amazingly, though they had never before been introduced, my friends from school had already met our musical theater crew on the journey. By the time they piled into the car, they already had private in-jokes and had established nicknames that have lasted till this day.

The split level architecture and the drab, brown-toned exterior of our 1960s prefab Deck House would have given Frank Lloyd Wright night sweats, but it looked magical in the snow, which fully blanketed the front and back lawns. The icicles hanging from the trees and off the roof and decks could have been art directed. Smoke billowed from the chimney. My friends gasped as these shockingly iconic, provincial scenes came into view. 

Also, they had never before met my parents. The moment of my old and new life colliding was about to happen. 

My dad was already at the door. For some reason, he was holding our 18 year-old cat Mabel, a fluffy Persian mix born the same year as me that had been raised on Long Island by my paternal grandfather (Lou), but came to live in CT the year before when he had passed. She was still getting used to things. 

Dad did not say “Hello!” or “Welcome!” or “I’m David, nice to meet you” or “You must be cold, come in!” or “Don’t forget to wipe your shoes!” or any of the expected protocols normal people use to meet new house guests coming in from the snow. Not even a grunt in their general direction. 

Instead, before anyone even crossed the threshold, Dad exclaimed, “Smell my cat!” and shoved six pounds of gray furball in everyone’s face. 

“Smell her! She’s like a baby! The cat smells like talcum powder!” 

What had been a raucous bunch right up until this moment were now stunned into awed silence. Mabel, who I imagine would have sounded a lot like Marge Simpson (raspy NY accent) if she had the ability to speak, simply stared ahead with an expression that seemed to say, “Just go with it, honey.”

I now have only foggy memories of what happened next, but as I recall, my friends looked at each other, then at me, then indeed just went with it. When you’re around David Schuster, you live in his world. They smelled the cat. What else were they gonna do?

Apparently, the rumors were true. Mabel Schuster smelled like talcum powder. Our senior cat smelled like a baby. We will never know why, not that it really matters. 

There are lots of other stories from that holiday (a.k.a. “THE Thanksgiving”) that are special to all of us, including an appearance on Friday morning of an emboldened group of wild turkeys strutting through the snow in the backyard. That would not be the only Thanksgiving in the snow, but it was one of the only ones where some sort of freak disaster didn’t otherwise threaten the celebration. These included, in separate years: a blackout, the spontaneous breakage of the kitchen sink faucet (it was made by GROHE, so my mom declared a state of “e-Germancy” à la The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!); no plumbing (I’m not sure how we pulled that one off either); Dad forgetting to open the fireplace flue so the house filled with smoke and set off electronic fire alarms that we were barely able to shut off in time to avoid a needless visit from the fire department; dishwasher meltdown, and pie falling face down to the floor (and salvaged as “floor pie”) (Oh, please. Like you wouldn’t have done the same). We always made it work. 

Thirty-five years later, most of the same original crew (not the revolving students) still convenes for Thanksgiving and other special occasions, although with my parents who are now in their late eighties not physically up to hosting elaborate meals (and/or us not up to cleaning up after them), we let the meal prep, service, and associated behind-the-scenes hiccups up to professionals. 

As I said earlier, I know I am lucky. Many of you are bracing yourselves for what could be a tumultuous, stressful occasion either because of politics or other family discord, or maybe this American holiday has always held negative associations for you. I get it. There are lots of things about this, let’s face it, weird sanctioned tradition that are misguided and based on a very convenient revisionist American history about a truly barbaric period, and continue to be so. 

Since the Smell My Cat era, I’ve come to view this late autumn break more as an excuse to see people and catch up over a great meal with great wine rather than Thanksgiving as an idealistic concept. I see it as an opportunity—no matter how hard things may be, or what we know may be coming down the pike—to think about the past eleven months and try to take stock of what’s good. Aside from whatever mishegas surrounds the big meal, one of my recent annual traditions is to declutter. It’s a good way to prep for the winter, and at least know what underwear I need to buy at 30% off. 

And so, may you all find the good this season. 

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