I know what you're thinking: "But FM, how could you be grateful for such a thing?? The holiday's are meant to be spent with family!"
Easy for you to say. Let's have a little flashback to the last Thanksgiving that I spent with family, shall we?
Scene: My aunt's house in southern California (my mother and grandmother both live with her). Hubby has taken the day before the holiday off of work (unpaid) and we've driven 5 hours to get there. We arrive to find my grandmother ranting and raving at the poor behavior of her great-grandchildren who will be arriving the following day, both of my cousin's choices in husbands, and generally just having to put up with all of the guests. My mother spends the ENTIRE day pouting like a 4 year old because it happens to be her birthday and she can't understand why everyone in the family isn't willing to drive all the way there after they get off of work to celebrate her birthday, and then drive all the way back the next day for Thanksgiving. Mind you, we have a cake and gifts for her so that we can celebrate on her actual birthday, but she refuses. After all - what's a good tantrum unless there's a large audience to see it??
Thanksgiving dawns. Other family members start to arrive. Things start cooking. Which is terrifying in and of itself. The "gourmet" of the family is a woman who cooks everything out of a box, bag, or can. But the fact that she actually uses her oven has garnered her the title of "gourmet". My grandmother once made Mike and I french toast - and fried it in an inch of vegetable oil. My mother's favorite meals are all cooked in the microwave. See? Scary. I offered to make rolls for dinner, but was quickly put in my place as my cousin (the gourmet) would be making her wonderful biscuits to go with dinner. Imagine my shock when she arrived with her cans (yes, cans) of biscuits. You know, the Pillsbury ones? That you pop open and peel apart the dough at the perforations? Yep - those were "her" wonderful biscuits.
Dinner commenced and hubby and I managed to get some forkfuls down. We were beginning to envy Cody, who'd been smart enough to squirrel away a few bags of instant oatmeal into his pack before we'd left home.
After dinner, the real conversing began. This is where it always gets interesting. There's my heavy drinking cousin and her husband that I "lovingly" refer to as the Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown of the family. They arrived with alcohol on their breath and barely slowed all through dinner. There's kids who are felonies waiting to happen, my grandmother (who's still bitching about, well, everybody), there's my mother who is no longer pouting but now LOUDLY proclaiming her thanks for the birthday gifts that everyone brought her, and go's on for so long (30+ minutes) that I began wishing it were the Oscar's, and I could just cue the band to start playing and cut to commercial. Oh, and let's not forget the aunt that my cousin's hubby brought who regaled us with her wisdom as to why, exactly, stay at home moms were a waste of oxygen. Insults started flying, yelling began, and hubby and I started to fight over who's turn it was to walk the dog: "It's my turn to walk the dog!" "No it isn't! You got to walk her last time!" "Fine! We'll both go!" We were halfway down the block before we'd realized that we'd left Cody there with the family. We briefly pondered going back for him, but chose instead to save ourselves. Kinda like the bear survival technique: I don't need to run fast, I just need to run faster than you. By the time we got back, one large faction of the family (the drunk ones) had left, and the other was preparing to leave. My grandmother had stormed off and locked herself in her room, and my mother was in tears because everyone ruined her birthday.
And this was one of our better family Thanksgivings.
Which is why we now spend it with our friends, the Jennings. Last year was the first time for both of our families to spend it with friends instead of family. Even though we only live about 20 miles away from each other, we spend the night. It's not only be incredibly fun, but relaxing as well. Imagine - a relaxed holiday! I'm telling you, we've been positively giddy about the upcoming holiday.
Other than the food, our big tradition this time of year is we cut leaves out of construction paper and Cody writes something he's thankful for on each one. We then tape them all over the walls. We've been doing this for 5 - 6 years now and I'm always amazed at what he puts down. Instead of things you'd expect like "video games" and "toys" he always writes things like "my family", "clean water", and "food". Our other tradition is after we've sat down to dinner on Thanksgiving, we go around the table and everyone says what they're thankful for.
So, what about you? How are you spending the holiday? Any favorite traditions or food?
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