The dining room hummed with creativity. Maybe if more people took the time to have mashed potato igloo competitions during Thanksgiving dinner, there might be fewer knock-down, drag-out family fights about politics or sports or old wounds from childhood.

We were almost like a Norman Rockwell painting. That one where the polite, humble, idyllic family with impeccable manners is gathered around a perfectly set table. And this woman in a white frilly apron is lowering a flawlessly cooked turkey to the exact center of the table. Okay, I wasn’t exactly wearing a frilly white apron, but still, I’d cooked a pretty damn flawless turkey despite some formidable challenges.

“Smash cake!” Maeve yelled from the kiddie section. She lifted one chubby hand high and brought it down hard on her igloo-in-process.

“Smash cake!” Sydney yelled. She brought her chubby hand down even harder on her own igloo-to-be.

Globs of mashed potato flew everywhere. John wiped a potato splotch off the lens of his glasses.

“Damn,” Christine said. “I knew we never should have let them have smash cakes at their birthday parties.”

“Damn,” Maeve said. “Damn, damn, damn.”

“Thanks for that,” Carol said.

“What the hell’s a smash cake?” Billy Jr. said.

“Hell,” Sydney said. “Hell, hell, hell.”

“Thanks for that,” Christine’s husband Joe said.

“Smash cakes,” Carol said, “started out as tiny cakes given to one-year-olds at their first birthday parties so they could make a mess without trashing the main cake. But now sometimes smash cakes can be great big piñata-like cakes filled with candy or other treats. I just ordered one for a 50th birthday party I planned for a client filled with—never mind.” She cleared her throat. “In short, they’re a thing.”

I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was getting up too early. Maybe it was post-traumatic oven-door stress.

“Smash cake!” I yelled.

I lifted my hand up high and brought it down on my Thanksgiving igloo. When my palm made impact, warm gravy and mashed potato oozed between my fingers. I liked it.

“Smash cake!” everybody else yelled, even the in-laws, even John and Polly. Many igloo particles flew.

“Good gravy,” our dad said. It was unclear whether it was just an expression or he was complimenting John’s giblet gravy.

Laughter followed, that crazy out of control kind of laughter that hurts your stomach after a while and doesn’t happen nearly enough once you’re not a kid anymore. When one of us wound down, somebody else would get us going again.

We licked our fingers. We licked the palms of our hands. We rebuilt our igloos and polished them off by eating with actual forks.

My brother Johnny appeared like a vision in the doorway to the dining room. He looked around at the detritus spotting the tablecloth, our faces, our hair.

“Mom would be so proud,” he said.