My mother hates gravy. She made gravy each Thanksgiving when we were growing up, just to satisfy the family. But about 12 years ago, with her kids now grown, she drew a line in the sand: She would make no more gravy. Unfortunately, she chose the year Granny joined us for dinner to take the stand. My husband and I refer to it as the Granny Gravy Incident of 1998.

That year, I had just left active duty and after years of moving around, we decided to bring our two very young children to spend the holiday with my parents. My grandmother, then in her late 70s and newly widowed, flew in from Kentucky.  My grandmother is a brilliant, wonderful woman, but let's just say that she calls 'em as she sees 'em, especially where my mother is concerned.

Everything was lovely...the dining room table was set with my mother's fine china and crystal, and we were about to dig into an elaborate meal that my mother had labored over for two days. We were digging into the turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. Then Grandma asked someone to pass the gravy. This is where I'd insert a sound effect of a record scratching to a halt if I knew how. My mother kept eating and casually said, "I didn't make gravy. I hate gravy." You could hear a pin drop. We all looked toward Granny.

She put her fork down and in her Kentucky drawl said, "No gravy? Laaaawwwd, I don’t follow a Thanksgiving turkey being served with no gravy!"  Which pissed my mother off. I suspect she felt completely unappreciated for all the work she’d done. My dad became jovial, trying to defuse the tension. My husband and I looked at each other across the table and raised our eyebrows. Meanwhile, Granny continued to cluck about the lack of gravy and its catastrophic impact on Thanksgiving.

Good ol' Granny is 91 now, with full-blown dementia and living in a Kentucky nursing home. Despite not knowing what year it is or where she’s at most of the time, I suspect she’ll still be looking for the gravy boat this Thanksgiving. And I know that my mother would move mountains—let alone turkeys--to have her mother well enough to sit at her Thanksgiving table again. She’d even make gravy.

For so many of us moms, working our tail feathers off in the kitchen, Thanksgiving can become stressful. We feel pressure to be like Martha Stewart and create a Norman Rockwell-like scene for our kids. Then if the dinner doesn’t go down as we hope, we feel disappointed or even like we failed. But in the end, it’s not the meal and the tabletop that matters on Thursday; it’s about gratitude and enjoying the people around the table. If that means keeping things simple, buying some things ready-made, or asking for help, moms need to feel okay about letting some things go or calling in reinforcements.

As my kids have gotten older, I’ve also required them to pitch in. This year they’ll help clean the house, keep the dishwasher loaded and unloaded, take out the trash, and help with some of the meal prep.

And, one of the best items to put on the Thanksgiving menu just might be a sense of humor. Each year, when my husband, who has bird duty, whips up our Thanksgiving gravy, we have a good laugh over the Granny Gravy Incident. It’s become a standing tradition for my husband to add special thanks for the gravy during grace, and a special petition to bless those poor souls who are forced go without gravy on Thanksgiving Day. You get the point…we try to keep the mood light.

This Thanksgiving I am grateful for so many things. After witnessing so much human suffering and destruction in Haiti earlier this year, and knowing how many of my friends are deployed far from their families over the holidays, many in harm’s way, I am truly humbled and thankful for the basics of family, hearth and home.
I'll lift my glass to those deployed friends and also to the long line of strong-willed women in my family. I’ll say a prayer for my Granny, who I love. After all, family and friends are what matter most. 

The rest, as they say, is gravy!