Thanksgiving

My family, my dad's side, always tries to meet up at least once per year, for Thanksgiving. Last year was a bust, my sister ended up in the ICU, my mom had surgery the week before, a cousin's in-law passed away, another cousin's in-law tried to do the same thing while taking out a cat, and the flu was rampant. Last year was THE clusterfuck from hell for a family get together. But this year everyone was as healthy as possible, and went on as normal. Well what can pass for normal, for us. We are an odd bunch that is hard to describe, we insult each other out of respect, generally harass each other out of love, and brag about how awesome the football teams we root for are, and how we are kicking the crap out of so and so in our fantasy sports league. There's drunken yelling, but mostly in an argument about who had the better insult. It's the best dysfunctional family I have ever heard of. We have die hard Republicans that get along just fine with the die hard Democrats. Most of the family claim to be Catholic, there's a family prayer which is fine and fully nondenominational, and they tolerate my near atheism and how my sister is a practicing Wiccan. We all have some kind of goddamn food issue, that everyone forgets until it's been realized to have been added to the list of someone else. My sister has Celiac Disease, and she can't have gluten, someone will always toss in flour to thicken up some soup dish; I'm allergic to mustard, the same person thought to spread that yellow goodness all over the goddamn ham; there is someone with a nut allergy and that meant that some needed to be in a fucking jello salad; someone can't have fruit, that ended up in every fucking sauce on the table. In the end, most of the food is eaten because we all said “Fuck it, I'm hungry, pass the goddamn gravy!”

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, sure Christmas gets you a present or two, and Easter has chocolate and coloring eggs, Halloween is just everyone in cosplay of some kind. Everyone enjoys one of our many holidays for some reason, and I enjoy it because I am finally around people that understand me. We're all goddamn fucking weird, and have the same humor. To the outsider, we are probably a nightmare, we even have a rule about bringing in a potential mate, you get one free pass to be an observer. If you are dumb enough to come back, you are now fair game. There have been a couple of people that couldn't handle us and we never saw them again, then there are those that fit in before we even met. An aunt was introduced to us as a Raider fan, the family is mostly Packer fans, and she immediately attacked me with witty sarcasm snarky humor. I defended myself, she responded back, and then she uttered a swear word at dinner the night after Thanksgiving (at the time we took over a Home Town Buffet, which has sadly closed. Sad for us, probably not for them) and she was forced to come sit at my table. She is currently one of my favorite aunts, because I have not lost to her in our fantasy football league this year, and my attitude can change at any moment depending on a football score.

One of the things argued about at these Thanksgiving dinners is weather. Argue is probably too much. More like discussed. With sides. One group of the family is from San Diego, where the temperature is a stable seventy degrees year round. They think fifty degrees is cold, and they will “freeze to death” and always wear some godawful coat and complain about how my uncle hasn't turned on the heat. I come from the mountains of California, where we have winter, it was sixteen fucking degrees the morning we left for my uncle's house this year. I thought about wearing shorts to dinner, but my tan is gone now that the frost has arrived at home. This aunt needs to sleep in a bed with a heater. I slept in the tent trailer set up outside in the driveway. This weekend ended up being a cooler one, with some good winter like winds blowing, so I needed a couple blankets, those thin lap things that K-Mart sells this time of year for $5. And the next morning, I am always asked if it was too cold outside, and that aunt is always right there to hear me say, “No, still warmer than home.” My uncle is a smooth styled kind of asshole, I believe my answer brings him joy after her complaining about how his house is too cold.