What does your family do on Thanksgiving?

The Burke and Culhane-Shoenberg families gathered chez Marx and after much food, wine and pie (I count that separately from the 'food' category) my Mom, Dad, Liz, John, Susan Burke and I proceeded to get down with an old-fashioned folk/bluegrass jam session.

The backstory here is that my family--and Liz's too are the absolute epitome of A Mighty Wind. Seriously, there are certain details taken right out of our parents' youth as folk rock superstars that were put into that movie--things that cannot be pure coincidence.

The truth is that no matter how much I've made fun of their folk hippie pasts, my parents are so much cooler than I'll ever be. My Mom went to Berkeley and played with everyone. When Jerry Garcia went off and left their circle (when the Dead got big) everyone was just like, oh Jerry's just doing his thing, he'll be back to play real music with us again soon...and he did. Bob Dylan, R. Crumb, Mark O'Connor--these were just regular people who were part of the scene.

My Mom eventually met Liz's Dad in Seattle (a place where a lot of the hippies went when Berkeley/SF/NY (the Village) got ruined by the Flower Children. They started "The Old Hat Band" with my Mom's first husband, Jeff, toured everywhere and were unbelievably awesome.

My Dad was touring around/playing music elsewhere in his VW bus (also married to someone else at the time) in Southern California having finally escaped a tortured childhood in LA's Pacific Palisades, and spent a lot of time in Santa Barbara and in the mountains outside of San Diego (ha, that sounds so Anchorman).

My parents literally met at a folk music jam session--or maybe it was a band practice, I think one of them was subbing in for someone else. Anyway, my Mom complimented my Dad on his banjo-playing skills...and the rest is history.

I guess I take it for granted that everyone in my family plays like literally ten instruments in a variety of styles--including Classical and Jazz. I started Classical piano when I was three, then switched to violin at age four, started voice lessons at around ten. I'm very Classically trained and minded, but I've trying to learn to branch out with the violin and learn to fiddle (well) and experiement with other genres, too. Liz and I plan to start a cover band in ode to our 'rents, "The Young Hat Band." Look for us in Washington Square Park when the weather gets warm.