Steps

 This year, my son made Thanksgiving dinner. Not that there wasn't a bit of a tug-of-war about who would be doing the main dish. I have spent the better part of a quarter century becoming proficient at wrestling a mostly flightless fowl into the oven and getting it ready to serve to guests before it becomes a hypoglycemic incident. 

But not this year. My son called and said that he wanted to treat us all to his smoked tri-tip. Both my wife and son worried that this might be a difficult discussion for us all. For a few minutes, all those turkeys that I had slavishly basted and peeked at over the years obscured my vision of what could be: Free access to more football. Suddenly, the couch opened up for me. Sure son, you go ahead and get up at six in the morning to smoke the meat you've been marinating since the day before. We'll just wait here. 

And it started to catch up to me that this is how things work. Sure, I made some delicious potato salad and a grasshopper pie, but the actual marathon event that is making the main course of a holiday meal just slipped a generation. It's not like the kid's cooking prowess is in question. We have been witness to many of his creations, and he has even passed along a few recipes to his parents. 

But this was the big time. Thanksgiving dinner. How would he fare? 

I needn't have worried. The meat was tasty, and he even did us the offhand favor of saying that he had an extra slab of meat he left for his roommates that was even better. 

Even better? I'm not sure he fully comprehends the magnitude of this moment. Like the time he offered to take care of the hotel on our most recent family visit to Disneyland. "I've got this, Dad," are some pretty magical words. At once I am as proud as one might expect, and the next moment I am looking over my shoulder for the men in white coats, coming to lead me away. 

I still make a pretty good potato salad.