I hate the Thanksgiving meal.

I don't mean the actual food – I love the turkey, gravy and all the fixings served up on special china plates in houses across America every last Thursday of November. It's not the mashed potatoes swaddled in butter or the sweet potatoes I despise – it's the cooking of the fare that makes me loathe all things Thanksgiving.

I am the one who is always going to someone else's meal, as in "Honey, have you met our new neighbors yet and does their dining table (visible through their front window) look long enough for four extra people?”

There was one year when I had to cook. Nobody else in the family could do it and our neighbors all had surprisingly small dining tables.

I had to ask my brother for a recipe. David cooks his turkey with flourish every year, so I knew he could give me a few pointers. What seemed like 82 ingredients later, I was wrestling a 22-pound turkey into an overnight marinade. I almost fell off the back steps stuffing the bird into a cooler usually reserved for summer drinks. But this night that cooler held a list of ingredients rivaling a baker's pantry along with flavorings that made me wonder if this was an actual pilgrim recipe; one of the ingredients – I'm not kidding – was a pine tree branch.

I barely slept because of worrying about the big dead bird on my doorstep. The morning of Thanksgiving I was in my pajamas pulling a turkey out of liquid that closely resembled what pools in a broken dishwater. I shoved it into the oven and prayed all would come out OK. I walked around the kitchen reading David's recipe like it was the combination to a safe. If I blew this meal who knew what bad turkey karma was heading my way, never mind the possible kitchen fire and ceremonial ordering of emergency take-out fast food.

By some holiday miracle the meal went off OK. I got the bird out of the oven in enough time to make sure nobody died of whatever you die of when a turkey tastes terrible. It was a holiday meal I'll never forget – nor repeat.

But though I lost a good night's sleep and I washed a million dishes afterwards, my one and only Thanksgiving meal went down without food poisoning, a smoke alarm ringing or a call to 911.

And that, in the spirit of all that is good and plentiful each year on the last Thursday of every  November,  is something for which I am truly
thankful.