Maybe it was the presence of the German exchange student that started it all on Thanksgiving. Certainly her cheerful ignorance of America’s ritual meal was what sparked the first lines of inquiry. “Why do we eat turkey on Thanksgiving, anyway?” a child asked, between bites.
“Didn’t the Indians bring popcorn in leather bags to the first feast?”
“Gross,” someone laughed.
“Brussels sprouts are gross, and we’re eating them.”
“They are so not gross!” Thus the banter ran, lively but not very elevated, as three generations shot remarks back and forth across the crowded dining room and massive quantities of stereotypical Thanksgiving foods vanished from everyone’s plates.
“Poor Pilgrims,” a teenager remarked: “No iPods.”
“No texting.”
“No Netflix!”
It was funny: Of course children know the Pilgrims didn’t have iPods — or electricity, or cell phones, or supermarkets, or pre-plucked roasters with pop-up buttons to signal that the meat is cooked — but so thoroughly have modern conveniences penetrated modern childhood that, just for the moment, it seemed to strike them as a hilarious revelation.
“In 1620, if you wanted entertainment, you had to provide it yourself,” said an adult, in the tiresome, edifying way of adults.
“Indeed,” chimed another didactic soul. “For instance, you might have sung, or played the spinet, or recited poetry.”
“I can recite a poem,” the 5-year-old suddenly announced. The words fell on the assembly like a challenge. For a moment no one said anything, and so, doughtily, she began: “A little green leaf on a maple tree/said I’m tired of being green, I want to be red. …” and she said the whole poem, straight through.
“Hurrah!” cried everyone, clapping. Then followed a moment in which the only sounds were the clink of silverware and a few suppressed giggles.
“Anyone else?” said a provocateur. “How about it?”
At an ordinary meal, most of the children would have bolted. And adults might have wriggled out of any sense of obligation by laughing that they “can’t sing” or “can’t remember anything these days.”
But it was Thanksgiving, the white linen and candlelight conveyed a sense of heightened occasion, and, in the case of the children, the grown-ups might threaten to withhold pie. And so, tentatively but with increasing gaiety, those at the gathering began to sing for their supper.
Someone’s mother sang the Schoolhouse Rock version of the preamble to the Constitution. A father and son recited the prologue to the “Canterbury Tales.” Two sisters sang an Italian folk song. Another father warbled his old high school song. A teenage girl recited “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” Another girl stalled, coughed, and suddenly poured forth a lovely ballad. Then up stood a teenage boy.
“The-Assyrian-came-down-like-a-wolf-on-the-fold,” he mumbled “And — I forget.” He sat down to a mixture of praise and jeers. Blushing, the boy pointed to the exchange student: “Your turn.”
Ah, it couldn’t be done. No songs, no poems, not even counting in German for fun. But what she would do was hold the music for a guest who’d brought her violin. And that, truly, was good enough.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
