You know how little kids sometimes think that their parents can do things that they can't, like they have magic powers? Well, I think some of them do. For example, my mom has the ability to cancel national holidays. As of Tuesday, Thanksgiving was canceled due to impending drama. (Either my mom was sick, or she was worried over who was going to show up and who wasn't, or she didn't want to make ham just to "appease" certain people... I heard several reasons. I think that second option was most likely, the last one seems unlikely because when have we ever had anything other than ham? I doubt she wanted to make tamales while sick.) She also put a tentative cancellation order on Christmas, saying "we'll see" if we get together.
My sister passed along our un-invitation to lunch on Tuesday. (We do lunch partially as a concession so that Charles and I can attend Thanksgiving with both of our families. We've always ended up eating early even if we were supposed to have "dinner," so pushing it an hour or two earlier wasn't a problem. My sister's kids also do dinner with their dad's family.) Slightly troubled, but mostly un-phased by the cancellation, my sister decided to cut up the ham she had and make it into sandwich meat, since it was no longer needed for our Thanksgiving meal.
My dad, on the other hand, told me on Wednesday that my mom is just being silly and don't pay any attention to her, come eat on Thursday. As a matter of fact, come on Wednesday, he said- we could help assemble a new shed they bought, and not drive on the holiday when people were likely drinking. I convinced him that people shouldn't be drinking before lunch, and told him I'd call back and talk to mom. Mood: confused, doubtful.
I tried to call my sister to see if the un-invitation was officially revoked by "the momma" but got no answer. She was out purchasing a storage shed with my mom. They apparently did not get the memo that shopping is to take place the day after Thanksgiving, not the day before. (What can I say, it seems we do a lot of holiday stuff funny...)
On Thursday morning, after sleeping in far longer than I should have, I called my parents' house figuring that my sister would be there. My dad answered and said that in fact, my sisters said they were making the Thanksgiving meal and bringing it to parents' house, but they weren't there yet. Okay, I said, let's go have Thanksgiving...
On a side note, I would like to add that at this point, it was confirmed that my dad has the super power of "detect BS" which in most cases nullifies the effects the "cancel national holidays" power. It's a delicate balance of power in our family.
We leave at about 12 or 12:30, show up and the only thing fully edible is the green salad. Since Thanksgiving had been canceled, they shopped for sheds instead of groceries. There was no butter for the baked potatoes, no mayonnaise for the potato salad, and the turkey (this is a new experiment they were trying, since the ham had been sliced up... we have never had turkey) had just recently been put in the oven.
Icing on the proverbial cake: shortly after arriving, I get a call from my sister who says that she forgot to stuff the turkey, can I make the stuffing and try to stuff it in the mostly-cooked turkey before they arrived? I did, of course, it was that or face being drafted into the shed-assembly corps. (Not surprisingly, I had already been tapped to make their downstairs TV work again. It was just unplugged- it needed a power strip because they use their stereo all the time, and without their plug-in rabbit ears, plugging the TV in would be useless. Shortly afterward, Charles was tapped to make the reception better by playing with the antenna while I made stuffing.)
So, at about 2pm my sisters arrive with 2/3 children, 0/1 grandchildren, 0/1 husbands, mayo, butter, and KFC- in case the turkey wasn't any good, they said. Remember, we have never had turkey. As such, no one knows quite how to slice it up. My husband Charles, whose family eats turkey regularly on holidays, didn't offer any wisdom other than we had the wrong fork. I suggested an emergency call to his parents, but by that time my sister had managed to get enough meat to serve. We figured out what we were doing wrong only after we were all stuffed.
I brought up the subject of Christmas while we ate our last-minute Thanksgiving lunch. After much discussion, the plan is this:
December 24th- We've always celebrated on the 24th, the idea being that you have dinner, stay up, spend time together, and open your presents at midnight. But first I was young, then sister's kids were young, and now parents are old, and no one wants to wait until midnight, so gift opening normally starts at about 9pm. Our plan this year: We leave ultra-early from parents house, go to Disneyland for the day, stay until closing (9pm), drive home to parents' house.
December 25th- We normally don't do anything on the 25th, except go to church. It's kind of anti-climactic, the whole holiday season and gift buying and such, only to not have any plans on Christmas. Luckily, this frees me up to eat dinner with my husband's family without skipping mine, so I don't complain. This year, however, we will do presents (a $20 gift exchange) in the morning like "normal" people. Except without a tree.
We have done a gift exchange at Christmas several times, depending on the general financial situation. I remember when I first became old enough to be part of the gift exchange... True, my mom financed the purchase of the gift for the person whose name I drew, but the new thing was that I only got one present. I was the baby of the family, 15 years younger than my sisters, so this was a new thing to me. My sister's 3 kids, however, still received something from everyone even on gift exchange years. This year, they became old enough (14, 15, 16) to do the gift exchange, and only the baby is getting multiple presents. Michael was quiet as always, but Carynna was resistant to change. Don't blame her. ;)
As a sort of compromise with Carynna and the other traditional-Christmas sympathizers, we will put a ham in the oven while we open presents in the morning and eat it for lunch.
We left Thanksgiving lunch at about 4pm and went to Thanksgiving dinner at Charles's parents' house. In contrast, they had two turkeys and meatloaf (also something my family has never done, the first time I ate meatloaf I was a junior in high school). There were a lot more "fixings" and such, things that normally come when you know in advance that you're having a big holiday. Much different! Also, no one at my in-laws' house has to "plan" Christmas. Christmas just is, and people will come, and there will be food. None of those are a given at my parents' house. Very strange contrast...
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