The Day Before Turkey
By Ricky Fitzpatrick for The Creative South

There are a handful of days in the Southern year that come pre-loaded with a sort of quiet electricity. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is one of them. 

It’s not an official holiday, but it behaves like one. Folks show up to work with the same energy they bring to a dentist appointment. School traffic evaporates into thin air. And if you drive through any small town between Cordele and Cornelia, you’ll see gas pumps working overtime like they’re trying to power the whole Eastern Seaboard.

Because a lot of us are “traveling.” Which most likely means “driving into the next county.” 

Nobody around here is flying to Aspen or spending the holiday on a mountaintop sipping ethically sourced hot chocolate. We’re just trying to make it to Aunt Reeda’s without someone throwing up in the backseat or discovering the baked beans have sloshed onto Mamaw’s deviled egg plate. It’s a humble quest, but we approach it with the gravity of a Lewis & Clark expedition…minus the elk.

But Pre-Thanksgiving Day isn’t only about travel. It’s also about cooking.

Growing up, the Wednesday before the fourth Thursday in November was the Super Bowl of southern culinary chaos. Mama’s kitchen would whistle, hiss, steam, and bubble like an Appalachian coal plant about to unionize. The A/C running full blast, trying to compete with ten pots of boiling somethings…each mysteriously essential, each producing its own small thunderstorm. The front door stayed propped open, not for guests, but because we needed a cross-breeze to keep the wallpaper from peeling.

You didn’t enter the kitchen unless summoned. You didn’t touch anything unless instructed. And you didn’t ask questions, especially dangerous ones, like: “Is that supposed to be smoking?” or “Ain’t the turkey supposed to be thawed out by now?”

Just keep moving, keep quiet, and stay out of the blast radius of a mama making dressing.

At our house, the Wednesday spread meant every stove burner was occupied. Something fried. Something baked. Something that involved a Jell-O mold. At least one casserole constructed from ingredients that had no business knowing each other. The kitchen counters were lined with enough foil-covered dishes to qualify as FEMA relief supplies.

And somewhere between the chaos, preparations began for tomorrow’s marathon of TV time. Batteries were checked. Remotes cleaned of yesterday’s barbecue fingerprints. Football would be watched. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade would be judged. Someone’s uncle would announce, confidently and prematurely, that the Falcons were “overrated this year. Again.”

Pre-Thanksgiving also carries the nostalgia of front yard football, a tradition we hardly do anymore but insist on remembering fondly. Growing up, our yard seemed to be the perfect “football yard”...flat enough to minimize injuries, soft enough to cushion the ones that happened anyway, and big enough for one good run before running out of real estate. When we bought our current house, the yard was what called to me first…although we’ve yet to kickoff in it. 

And even though Thursday is the main event, there’s something special and sentimental about the day before. Maybe it’s the anticipation. Maybe it’s remembering simpler times, bigger families, louder houses, and folding tables that bowed under the weight of too much food and not enough Tupperware.

Or maybe it’s just that Thanksgiving makes us grateful a day early.

Because in the South, gratitude doesn’t wait on a calendar. It shows up in the steam of the kitchen, the mess of the living room, the chaos of the road, and the memory of every Thanksgiving that brought us to this one.

And around here, it’s never too early to give thanks.