Breaking Bread

JACQUELINE WOODSON ONCE LONGED FOR FAMILY GATHERINGS LIKE THE ONES SHE SAW ON COMMERCIALS DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON. SHE WOULD LEARN THAT WISHES HAVE POWER

- Jacqueline Woodson

As a girl I dreamed of the kind of holiday celebrations I imagined my friends were having— kitchens filled with the aromas of good food cooking, family coming from far away to cram the house with bodies and stories and laughter, presents in brightly colored wrapping. I dreamed there would come a day when my friends and I, now grown up with children of our own, would gather to laugh about our gray hairs and creaky limbs and to reminisce the way our elders once did about “the olden days.”

Unlike most of my friends, my family didn’t invite relatives to the table for huge family meals during the holidays. There was no turkey at Thanksgiving. No house ablaze with decorations. No sweet anticipation of Christmas gifts to open on a snowy morning. In our house the season was often a time of quiet reflection, my siblings and I spending our days out of school reading, playing board games, discussing which friend had been promised what doll or train set or bicycle. We eagerly anticipated Christmas afternoon, when we could finally join them on our Brooklyn street to share in their bounty.

We were a deeply religious family, and the Jehovah’s Witness religion forbade the celebration of holidays. My mother, employed by the electric company, was raising four kids on her own. After the bills had been paid, there was never much money left. I understood all of this, yet I still longed for a riot of colored boxes beneath a Christmas tree. But what I wanted more was the gathering of relatives, the extended families around tables. In my mind, as in the commercials populating the season, the holidays were all warmth, joy and laughter. Because such gatherings were so rare in my household, the turkey we finally dove into was often overcooked and dry, the result of my grandmother’s inexperience with such a big bird. Her fried chicken was always on point, but her turkey, not so much.