Thanksgiving Misgivings

Well, it's that wonderful time of year again... The Holidays. Ahh... The turkey, the desserts, the holiday music.... the trying to figure out how and when to see which relatives on which days so that you somehow manage not to hurt any body's feelings! Whoo Hoo! That NEVER works out for us.

See, EVERY year we go through this wonderful (read that word dripping with sarcasm) little game of musical families (like musical chairs, only with family members and everyone is cheating and no one really wins).

On the one hand, my side of the family likes to plan things.. usually 2 weeks or more in advance. Every one's conflicting work schedules are taken into account and a day and time are picked when everyone can make it so we can all be together and enjoy each other. Tim's side of the family likes to wait until the last minute, call us two hours before we are supposed to be at Mom's and exclaim that "thanksgiving is today and we've told all of the visiting relatives from out of town that you are coming so they can see the baby! So when will you be here?" I swear. EVERY YEAR!!!! And, every year we have to explain to Tim's grandma that we can't make it on account of we are supposed to be at Mom's in an hour and never mind that we've had these plans in place for WEEKS. We still have to hear her gripe and moan about how we "always choose my family over his" and how "SHE never brings the babies out to see her," and blah blah blah blah. *sighs* Ahh the wonderful sounds of the season. Am I right?

Of course, she's right about a few things. I RARELY bring the kids out to see her. This is because 1) They live 30 minutes away from us and packing up enough gear to sustain one 3 month old baby and one four year old for a 4 hour visit at a house with enough glass figurines of Jesus, Angels, and Dolphins to but even the largest gift shop out of business is no easy feat. Not to mention the then loading and transporting said babies out that far and then chasing them around making sure they don't break anything.... grrrr... 2) She spent the first two years of the B's life trying to teach her to say, "Oh it's ok, it's All MOMMY'S FAULT!" every time she dropped or spilled anything. 3) She knows where we live and it's much easier for her to put herself in her car and make the drive herself if she really wanted to visit with them, and it's much easier for me to keep track of my kids at MY house. And usually when it comes to picking between the two families, mine generally wins out. It's quite possible this is because my family has welcomed Tim with open arms and no one has tried to teach our kids any nasty things to say about him, and no refers to him as an "outlaw," simply because he married into the family. These things tend to make the visits with my side of the fam a little more enjoyable.

So, this year both families have decided that Thanksgiving dinner will be ON thanksgiving day and no exceptions. So far the day looks like this: 11 am we will go to Grandma Wade's for Tim's family's dinner where the food will most likely be cold and been sitting out since 9 am (WHY?! GRANDMA WHY?!!!), but as long as the turkey isn't burnt to a cinder, it will be better than last year's fare. (no lie, but that's another story altogether) We will eat what we can while avoiding the 4-5 yipping, shaking chihuahua's that run the house. We'll visit for about an hour, and then head to Momma's for around 3-ish in the afternoon. Papa's nixing the traditional turkey all together and making gumbo instead. SCORE! After visiting with my side of the family there are two possibilities: 1)Go home and pass out, or 2) Head over to our friend's house for thanksgiving dinner the right way and then go home and pass out... if we make it. It's highly possible we could just do our passing out at our friend's house. It's been known to happen before.

In other news, I'm hoping to go out and do a bit of christmas shopping this week BEFORE friday. Believe me when I tell you that you will NEVER, and I mean EVER catch me out and about on "black friday." I'd rather eat dirt. So anyway, if I somehow survive thursday I'll be sure to blog about it.