Every Thanksgiving table tells a story. Ours always began with a familiar sound: the soft schloop of canned cranberry sauce sliding out onto a plate. There it sat, proud and unbothered, its ridged sides etched like tree rings—marking time, tradition, and the comfort of sameness. As a child, I loved the ceremony of slicing it into perfect, jiggly rounds. It was sweet, simple, and always there.
Years later, newly married and eager to make my mark, I decided to craft my own cranberry orange marmalade. I stirred fresh cranberries with citrus zest and sugar, watching it bubble into something bright and fragrant. I served it in the crystal glassware gifted to me at my bridal shower—delicate, sparkling, and full of promise. It was delicious, elegant, and mine.
But even as I embraced the homemade and the refined, the canned cranberry sauce never left our table. It became a quiet tribute to childhood Thanksgivings, to the people who came before me, and to the idea that tradition isn’t something you replace—it’s something you layer.
So now, every year, both sit side by side: the crystal and the can. One tells the story of where I’ve been. The other, where I’m going.