Improvisation might be the best gift of the holidays

As another Thanksgiving approaches, I’ve been thinking about Martha Teichner, who was a young correspondent for CBS News when I first met her in the 1980s. She was speaking to high school journalists at a conference in New Orleans, and I was one of the teenagers in the audience. Teichner gave us a lot of good advice, which included the value of keeping a notebook.

I didn’t reconnect with Teichner until 2021, when I interviewed her by phone after she wrote, “When Harry Met Minnie.” It’s supposed to be about the bull terriers Teichner has owned, but the book also touches on a great many other things, including the importance of treasuring friends. There’s also a wonderful Thanksgiving story in the mix, and it’s come back to mind as the big holiday draws near.

Our tale begins in 1974, when Teichner was working at a TV station in Miami. She was single, far from home, and had invited nine other people to her little place for Thanksgiving. A nice crowd, for sure, and something of a complication. Teichner had only four table settings, and her tiny table could seat just four guests.

At a restaurant supply company, the budget-conscious Teichner scored cheap extra china. She was able to add some demitasse cups and saucers to her order, items originally minted for a now-defunct airline.

“They all said TWA on the bottom,” Teichner tells readers.

Seating was still a challenge, but another solution appeared. The phone company had been laying cable in Teichner’s neighborhood, leaving huge wooden spools behind. With help from friends, she “liberated” one of them.

“We put it on my balcony,” Teichner writes. “If I covered it with some padding and a tablecloth, I thought, no one would get a splinter.”

After scrounging up some folding chairs, Teichner was able to serve her guests. She’s lived in New York for years now, prospering in a career that’s allowed her to entertain more elegantly.

“I have most of the china and still use it, including the TWA cups,” Teichner notes in her memoir.

I love this story and its abiding reminder that improvisation has always been one of the great virtues of the holidays. I’m thinking of those card tables fished from closets to accommodate extra diners, the mismatched knives and forks as every bit of dinnerware falls into place to serve a crowded house. I’ve even seen a bed sheet pressed into service as a tablecloth when other linen wasn’t handy.

We started autumn this year at our house with a birthday dinner for a friend. Our dining room seemed too small for the guest list, so we threw together an alternate spot on the patio, a choice that worked out well. The cool, bright evening was a gift to savor.

I’ll be grateful this Thanksgiving for life’s moments of making do. They can open us to wonder, where all true gratitude starts.

Email Danny Heitman at danny@dannyheitman.com.