“Next year, we’re all coming to Austin for Thanksgiving,” my mom told me over the phone, half-jokingly, and that was as close as she would get to revealing that she had been very unhappy about their Thanksgiving plans this year. I just laughed along with her, as if it were a joke. I hadn’t told her, and wouldn’t, that this year I had one of the best Thanksgiving days ever, ever, ever.
My Thanksgiving: I enjoyed a quiet day off rather than a social holiday. I bought a half-baked pizza from Mangia the day before and had it for lunch. I meant to watch some movies, but got caught up cleaning up the computer area, cleaning out some boxes of stuff, and working on the design for this very Web site. My one nod to the holiday was a cranberry-apple pie that I bought from Whole Foods because I simply could not resist. I love that pie.
I had no face-to-face communication, just a phone call from my sister, a phone call from my boyfriend, and some IM conversation with said boyfriend.
It was a true vacation day (in a way that family holidays are not) and I could not have asked for anything better.
My sister supplied the story of my family’s Thanksgiving: My mom’s sister’s family drove into town (my parents’ town, not mine) and my aunt and uncle stayed with my parents. A good number of people were there at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner: my aunt and uncle, my cousin and her husband, my cousin’s husband’s parents, my youngest brother, my sister and my niece, my great-aunt and uncle … but not my grandparents.
My aunt’s family had all come into town because my mom gave them holy hell a few years ago for making her arrange every holiday with my grandparents. My aunt’s idea of “taking a turn” and “helping” is to show up at my parents’ house and let them host Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, wait, they did help. They brought green beans and some sweet potatoes with those little marshmallows on them. How could I forget, since my sister spent at least 10 minutes on the phone making derogatory comments about those particular dishes. (Apparently the sweet potatoes had some sort of citrus juice applied to them. I dislike sweet potatoes anyway, but orange-y sweet potatoes does sound more nasty than usual.)
So my grandparents refused to show up because the weather was bad (it was raining) and my grandmother wasn’t feeling well. In fact, they took the phone off the hook so no one would call them and pester them about it. Then they refused to let anyone come over and bring them a plate of food later that day.
You know, I can respect people who want to spend a holiday alone, but that’s not exactly what happened. I was there three years ago on Thanksgiving when my grandmother wailed and whined about how this was their first Thanksgiving alone, ever, in their whole lives, and they sure did miss having the family around, and my mom promised to make sure they didn’t have to spend another holiday alone again. If my grandparents had said a month ago, “No, we want to spend the day by ourselves” that would be one thing, but instead my grandmother moans and complains that no one ever comes to see her and she is terribly neglected, and then after people drive from Alabama and Georgia to spend the holiday with her, shuts herself in the house.
So my mom has officially Had Enough, and while I’ve heard her Have Enough before and then weaken, it sounds like this one might stick. My dad told my sister that no, they are not going to plan Christmas Day around the faint hopes that my grandmother might feel like leaving her house. We might spend Christmas at my sister’s house, or better still, at my Uncle Ray and Aunt Ya-Ya’s house, because it would be a very good way of cheering them up at the holidays. (Aunt Ya-Ya is still pretty sick and can barely speak, but she likes company.) I said I thought that was a fine idea.
My dad also told my sister, in that half-joking way, “Next year, we’ll all drive up to Austin and spend Thanksgiving with Jette and Beau.”
My mom gave me a very valuable piece of advice last year. Someone had been talking about a family reunion in Las Vegas, or some other foolish possible event, and she just smiled and laughed and agreed that it did sound like fun. Later, she told me, “You know, nine times out of ten, people never go through with plans like that. So it’s better to just act agreeable, and then if they really do seriously start planning it, that’s the time to tell them you’re not interested.”
I think it might be enjoyable to have the whole family visit for Thanksgiving, in that holiday sort of way with extra stress and all. You understand me—fun and pleasant but also very tiring. Who can tell what might happen next year, though … maybe I’ll end up travelling somewhere for the holiday. Maybe my grandmother will be on her deathbed and my family will be unable to leave her. Maybe my parents will refuse to come visit me if my boyfriend is living in my house. It’s too early to know, so why not laugh and sound happy about a visit that might not happen?
I enjoyed my holiday very much this year, and one reason why was that I have the sneaking suspicion that next Thanksgiving, I’ll be pushed back into a day of being social, sitting in front of a TV blaring football, being nice, and all that. Maybe I can alternate—one year being traditionally social, one year curled up with pizza and Peckinpah movies. That could work.