The 12 stages of the Midwest Goodbye – Chicago Tribune

Good morning, Chicago.

‘Tis the season for lingering in doorways.

“Years ago, when I moved to the Midwest, I wondered why the holidays passed so much quicker here than they do on the Coasts,” writes Christopher Borrelli. “Soon I realized it wasn’t that time and space behave differently in the Midwest, it was because we spend so much time standing on a threshold, one hand on a doorknob, resisting leftovers, hugging, promising to return, resisting leftovers once again, listening to just one more story, being unable to extract ourselves, the holidays are gone before we can make it to a second holiday gathering.”

They call it the Midwest Goodbye.

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The tables at the Littmann home in Evanston were set with turkey-themed place cards, handwritten with a mix of Jewish and Muslim names. The final touches on the holiday feast were almost complete as the guests of honor arrived at the door.

The Dil Mohamad family — Rohingya refugees who resettled in Chicago seven months ago — came to celebrate their first Thanksgiving dinner amid safety and freedom in the United States.

Fireside board games, anyone? Or how about a family cookie-baking session? As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, sending first-year college students home after two or three very long months, visions of family togetherness are dancing in the heads of excited parents.

“I think sometimes parents might have that expectation, ‘Oh, it’s going to be like old times,’ ” said Kamau Grantham, a clinical psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Maybe that’s the case. But maybe your 18- or 19-year-old is into other things now.”

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There’s nothing more festive than that pop of Champagne and a resounding clink of glasses to ring in the holiday season. But with Thanksgiving just ahead and Christmas and New Year’s festivities looming, choosing wines for the steady succession of holidays can be a bit stressful too.

Chicago sommeliers are here to help, offering their expertise for the season, with best bottles for each holiday.

Whether you want to dine in the restaurant, host your own Friendsgiving, or take premade meal packages home to heat up on the holiday, give thanks that you won’t be cooking with the help of these Chicagoland Turkey Day specials.

Pretty Cool Ice Cream in Chicago has created a whole collection of Thanksgiving specials, with a few new flavors that we’re pretty sure no one screamed for, but might shout about.

Six seasonal flavors include four ice cream bars inspired by Thanksgiving sides: green bean casserole, cornbread stuffing, sweet potato marshmallow and pumpkin pie. You’ll also find a baked Brie cranberry ice cream sandwich, and a vegan Ambrosia salad by the pint.

Too many cooks spoil the soup is an old saying, but it does not apply to the Thanksgiving meal students at Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences prepared this week.

“In this case, it helps to have a lot of hands,” said Alvin Green, a chef from Beverly, one of three professional chefs who helped students at the magnet school make turkey dinners for more than 350 senior citizens.