the peanuts guide to peopling season
lessons from peppermint patty and snoopy.
The time is approaching to gather. To huddle around your aunt’s chalk-infused deviled eggs while you scream over a Lions game and wait for the tryptophan to come out of the oven. This week holds the great esteem of being the week you agonize with your friends about all the peopling ahead. The premonition of living through a Mad-Libbian dystopia.
How many times will I be asked about [insert obvious or emotionally sensitive subject here]? Who will dominate the conversation with their [over consumption/evangelical sobriety]? Is [insert whomever you know will ABSOLUTELY] going to bring up that awkward [family trauma/political topic/comparative judgement] at the table again this year?
Lucky for you, in the year of our Lord 1973, the Peanuts gang ironed out three easy steps for each guests and hosts to follow for a successful Thanksgiving.
Guests
Peppermint Patty, good at baseball, is less skilled with emotional labor. However, she’s got great tips we can all use this holiday season.
Invite yourself!
For real though. I’m fully in favor of inviting myself places I’d like to go. How else are you going to get there? You’re going to wait for a phone call? In 2023? We are so far into the future that Samsung has reinvented the flip phone. Ain’t no phone trees to figure out whose bringing the stuffing happening.
Or do you think we’ve got snail-mailed embossed invitations to sit on the couch in matching plaid and watch football wearing $100 stretch pants kind of money? This is the era of hustle culture, start blasting people with text messages to see who is already cooking dinner.
Come as you are…
Urban dwellers are particularly out of practice with communing in people’s homes. Blame the rise of eating out or cost-per-square-foot, social media for setting unrealistic expectations around our meals and our homes, or the technology that allowed us to disconnect geographically from our previous communities. Whatever the cause, it’s one of the biggest ways we reject “the village” (we say we want).
So I say follow Peppermint Patty’s lead and come as you are. Unless you are coming as the person who will judge a home against every HGTV museum of a house that romanticizes the comforts of your personal childhood holiday memories without acknowledging any evidence of it being lived in.
But you want to show up 20 minutes before we slice the turkey in your Cowboys pajama pants with a store bought pie and big feelings on the timing of our Christmas decorating timeline? You could not be more welcomed in our pre-renovation makeover show house.
Be demanding?
I mean, sure. By all means grumble your way through a meal offered to you for free by someone who owes you nothing that it isn’t prepared to your grandmother’s exact specifications when you were twelve and your understanding of gourmet food was Spaghetti-O’s and the McDonald’s apple sleeve pie.
Go ahead and bark about tradition to the only people who will put up with you for five hours a year. Argue with your girlfriend about whether or not she’s “allowed” to bring a pie that might “overshadow” Nana’s store bought brownies. Forget to mention that you had to invite yourself because you either escaped or have been ousted from whatever imagined meal you’re judging this one against.
Hosts
Snoopy, who is taking the internet by storm, will be your host. His rules are equally simple.
Dress ostentatiously!
This lets your guests know that you are (a) effortlessly superior to them, (b) you are grounded in no sense of reality for the task you’ve agreed to, and (c) that you were expecting them all along. Do I recommend a pilgrim fit with multiple Miles Standish monologues? Prolly not. But if you want to wear a feather sleeved satin dress while you bend over to baste a turkey, skip the collar grazing earrings so that you can accessorize with however many eyerolls matches the number of table settings.
Make whatever you want…
Watching the pure joy of Snoopy and Charlie toasting enough bread to start an electrical fire and laughing while popcorn exploded all over the kitchen reminded me that hosts should have a little fun. Make dishes that match their comfort level. Be proud to share their creations. Experiment a little.
With that fun, Snoopies can expect at least one two-dimensional monster to lose their $h!t if the table doesn’t look like a Stove Top commercial or the ending of a 1985 John Hughes film.
Save the best for yourself?
After Snoopy gets reamed for his efforts, Charlie saves the day by inviting all his friends over to his grandma’s house for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Guests departed, Snoopy and Woodstock scurry into the red shed and pull out a turkey and the full fixins for the two of them to enjoy.
This struck me as an interesting ending to a moral tale, but also got me thinking. What responsibility does the host have to their holiday guests? Is it reasonable for guests to have some baseline expectations for what a host will provide? And what energy, dish, or tradition should a host hold for themselves?
Reading - These Light Ukrainian Cheese Pancakes Carry a Heavy Load by Flora Tsapovsky (2023) and how they are making it into restaurants across the USA.
Listening - Ratatat by Ratatat (2004) because I heard skater skirts are back and I wanna be ready.
Snacking - Snyder’s of Hanover Dipping Sticks which has turned into a family affair.
Watching - Moscow on the Hudson by Paul Mazursky (1984) which has a lot more cold war propaganda and a lot less circus performance than I remembered.
Smelling - Comme des Garcons Series 3 Incense: Zagorsk (2002) which wears like a cross between the weight of Archie’s longing in The Great and the lightness of birch juice in January.
What is your favorite Thanksgiving dish?
Are you usually a guest or a host?
What responsibility do guests and hosts have to each other during the holidays?
The Peanuts remind me that _____________________________.
Pretzel sticks vs pretzel twists: Go!
It’s Pilgrim Woodstock for me 😂 This was delightful, Mia!