From the Fall 2010 issue of the Underground News, a publication of Denver Urban Gardens

Every Thanksgiving Day, at about noon, I call up my mother and ask her what time I should start defrosting the turkey. For a few years, I got a nice panicky gasp out of her before she realized I was kidding. Nowadays, she knows it's coming, so we just share a forced laugh and go back to cooking the afternoon feast. It's one of our family's most cherished holiday traditions.

But if you were to ask me (not that you would) when I really start preparing Thanksgiving dinner, my serious answer would be "mid-July". That's when I plant the beets, turnips, carrots and parsnips that, when roasted, will make up my favorite part of the meal.

I love root vegetables not only for their maple-glazed deliciousness, but also because they embody so many of the themes that make the holiday season meaningful: home, family, sacrifice, and the deep mysteries of life.

By connecting us in a tangible way to our place on the earth, root veggies are a powerful symbol of home and family. Roots show up as a metaphor throughout our language to express our relationships with the places we live. Our family background is our "roots". When we decide where to make our home, we "put down roots" there. Growing root veg is the literal version of this decision to settle down: when you make the commitment to plant a parsnip or carrot seed, you know you're not going anywhere, for at least 120 days anyway. The flavor of root veggies is often described as "earthy", evoking our deep attachment to the land. We even root, root, root for the home team!

Root veg gets us in the holiday spirit in other ways too. As any parent who knows what they charge for a few little pieces of plastic in a Lego box will tell you, sacrifice is a major theme of the holidays. But for me, the virtue of sacrifice is best expressed in the heartwarming story of my children and our parsnip. It's an inspiring parable in which we demonstrate what may be the greatest effort and sacrifice on behalf of a single individual since "Saving Private Ryan".

Last year, my two sons indulged my unorthodox taste in vegetables and helped me plant a row of parsnips. The seed package warned us that the germination rate was low, but we had no idea. On a farm or big country garden, I suppose this is no big deal. But in a small community garden plot, it can reduce your whole row to a single harvestable root. Sure enough, all but one of our parsnip seeds either failed to sprout or succumbed during the season. As the date of maturity finally grew near, we all became obsessed with keeping the sole remaining parsnip alive. The boys rushed home from school each day to check on it. We watered, weeded, and ferociously flicked at any aphid who dared alight on its leaves. As Thanksgiving approached, we passionately rooted (see?) for our lone parsnip to survive down there like it was a Chilean miner.

The suspense of not knowing what's happening underground is half the fun of growing root vegetables. Just as the holidays are in many ways celebrations of life's great mysteries – where we came from, the wonder of childhood, how so much tinsel can get clogged in a vacuum cleaner – root veggies make us pause and ponder before they reveal their splendors. Unlike tomatoes, cucumbers and other crops that grow in full view, leaving nothing to the imagination, harvesting root vegetables is like opening holiday presents.

As with life itself, the hopes we plant along with the root vegetable seeds sometimes yield disappointment. All too often, we giddily pull up a carrot with huge bushy foliage and shoulders like Michael Phelps's, only to find a truncated root tapering almost immediately to nothingness. But its one or two bites still taste way better than any carrot from the store, and for every scrawny root, there is usually another one that exceeds expectations. When my kids finally harvested our parsnip on that crisp Thanksgiving morn, they celebrated its long sleek root as the triumphant reward for their dedicated efforts. They wouldn't eat it, of course, but I think they still got something out of it. And having fun with my kids in the garden gave me something to be thankful for that day.

I wish everyone a holiday season that is as fruitful, and as vegetableful, as that one.

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