Thanksgiving is now gone, thankfully. Not that spending time
with my family is difficult, but it’s tiring.
Thanksgiving is now gone, thankfully. Not that spending time with my family is difficult, but it’s tiring.
Some family members are so excited to see their kin during the holidays they become manic, talking continuously between gulps of air while driving 56 mph down a side street on the way to the mall. I had only time to put on a seat belt and clench my teeth at times and watch the scenario unfold.
“OK, we should stop by Loehman’s Plaza because I want to get something for your sister, but first we need to get things at the store for the dinner tonight, and… whoops, the brakes on this new car are very sensitive.”
“Help me, Lord” was my mantra during this past Thanksgiving holiday.
Then there’s the main attraction – the annual Thanksgiving dinner feast, where the sumptuous food overrides any other reservations about seeing certain family members. The feast draws various families from around the tree; there are second, third and possibly fourth uncles and cousins, and I have yet to fully understand our direct relationship. For instance there is my grandfather, whose sister’s sons (second or third uncles?) have many children about my age (third or fourth cousins?). Then my grandfather’s brother’s daughter, who has a son, who somehow has less then six degrees of separation.
I see these numerous distant family members only twice a year, so Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners are a routine of the generic “How are you?” (Great), “Are you still working at that newspaper?” (Yup), “How do you like it?” (It’s extraordinary). Then occasionally a more in depth question of “So, do you want to stay in journalism?”
But that’s it, and here’s the problem: Many distant relatives are put into a small house and tolerate the same stale conversations year after year just to get tanked on fishhouse punch and great food. Call me a cynic, but it’s a very odd phenomenon. Perhaps the Pilgrims felt the same about the Indians, who were known to speak a different language but could cook a mean turkey. Admittedly, for me it’s the 40-pound turkey perfected over years of annual roasts, Uncle Bob’s mashed potatoes, the multi-colored vegetable casserole topped with burnt Funyuns, the pies and the fishhouse punch.
Then there’s the absurd ritual of post-Thanksgiving shopping. It has become nearly as popular as gorging on food the night before. The heralded “busiest shopping day of the year” drew hordes of shoppers to local malls like teenagers to a Eminem film.
We had a plan, however. We got to the mall at 11 a.m., bloated yet speed-walking through the parking lot while others raced by to be the first at the sale racks. And the stores of course fed the frenzy with sales that lasted a few hours.
The cheery host at the clothing store notified me that the fleece jacket I was holding was on sale and the store would take an additional 15 percent off the price if I waited in that massive conga line that went around the entire store. I had exactly 12 minutes to get through the line. Call me a cynic again, but it’s another very odd phenomenon. The virtual mosh pit of shoppers in the mall led me to believe that perhaps a gift certificate is the best choice this Christmas.
But despite the absurd I found in Thanksgiving and the absurd I seem to find in many things apparently not absurd by the standards of others, Thanksgiving is always a refreshing exploration into the strange enigma of family. Because no matter how much we may all like to deny it, we are related to all those family members, and even some of those shoppers on some distant cosmic level.
Help me, Lord.
