Thanksgiving: Let the Games Begin

Thanksgiving in our family has always been a contentious affair.  What used to be my absolute favorite holiday turned into one that I could easily forgo after I got married.  When I was a kid, Thanksgiving meant going to my Aunt’s house and hanging out with my cousins… watching “The Sound of Music” (a tradition) and eating my Aunt’s famous cheeseball.  We always had sweet potato casserole and a big bowl of peas (just for me since nobody else liked them).  Thanksgiving in Connecticut and New York was great… we usually got our first snow flurries on that day and the leaves were still bright and colorful.

When I got married and we started celebrating Thanksgiving with my husband’s family, I quickly realized that not everybody did it like we did.  Instead of a big, all day affair… it was more like a regular day with a regular meal… except that the regular meal included turkey.  When my husband’s grandparents died, his sister took over the duties of Hostess and as such took over the planning of the entire day.

Every year she sends out an email to the family indicating what time dinner will be served.  It’s usually around 7pm.  Much too late for dinner on Thanksgiving and since the rest of us have kids (she doesn’t) it gets way too late to be out with cranky children.  Then she tells everybody they can bring whatever they want… great!  except that she follows it up with “you have to run it by me first”.  So usually she complains that whatever we want to bring is BAD!  Too many carbs, too sweet, has milk in it (she’s Kosher), will make too many leftovers.  Seriously?  Thanksgiving is the ONE day a year where too many carbs is NOT a bad thing!  And leftovers… aren’t you supposed to have weeks of leftovers?  Sweet?  What about pumpkin pie and whipped cream?  Oh right… can’t have that because there is milk in it.

Thanksgiving is always our family’s “E-MAIL” holiday.  I say that because the barrage of emails that go back and forth over the planning of this one day is enough to make your head spin.  Just wait… you’ll see.  I’ll share.

I would totally have Thanksgiving at my house, but my house doesn’t seat 25 people.  So, it’s left to my SIL which doesn’t really make anybody happy.  Can you say controlling?

So my SIL sent out her first e-mail letting us know the rules.  (Read: HER rules)

1. No dairy products at all.  The entire meal will be kosher.  (Considering we’ve been doing kosher meals for…. EVER…. it is completely unnecessary for her to remind everyone about this point.)

2. No leftovers.  (Kidding me?  Nobody is going to leave HER leftovers to deal with.  We always take leftovers home because WE actually LIKE Thanksgiving and having weeks of leftovers.  She has to remind us of this EVERY YEAR!)

3. You must let the Hostess know what you are bringing. (To say you can bring whatever dish you want and then follow that up with stating you have to run it by HER first is ridiculous.  What happens when you let her know what you are bringing?  She says NO.)

4.  No Questions or Comments.  (If you know ANYTHING about this family it’s this:  there will ALWAYS be questions and comments.  And maybe a few thousand complaints.)

So as you can imagine… the drama is heating up.  My husband doesn’t take anything sitting down.