Thanksgiving with the Crazies

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday. Anyone who knows me, knows I love to eat! There is only one day a year that I allow myself to binge on food and Thanksgiving is that blessed day. I feel no shame about it either. My grandmother has the most delicious homemade stuffing recipe that I have ever tasted.

Apart from the delicious spread of food, there’s another reason why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. The memories of my mom’s family! I swear the conversations that used to swirl around that table of food, were ripped straight off of a bad comedy. I never even realized how funny, obnoxious and downright crazy my family was until I repeated a few stories to my old boss. He truly laughed. Apparently other families are much better-behaved on turkey day.

My mom comes from a Dutch dairy farming family. Her family consists of blue collar workers, seasoned farmers and people who have never truly traveled from a fifty mile radius. There is a lack of class about them as well as a touch of backwoods drama.

My dad is a gentleman at family get-togethers. My brother and I both have higher educations. We’ve all been successful in a world that doesn’t consist of weekly visits to the old town tavern. We use manners at the table and although we laugh, everything is mostly appropriate and jokes are told with class.

So…sitting down at the Thanksgiving table with my mom’s bizarre family, was a once a year treat. It used to be an embarrassing endeavor, something we had to endure. I remember prepping my husband for our first Thanksgiving together with a reminder to always lock the bathroom door, because no one on my mom’s side bothers to knock. I can’t describe to you how many times I was walked in on as a child.

Most of my mom’s family does not in any way respect people with higher education or with white collar jobs. The only job that is ever worthy, is a hands on trade. To them, we are all just wasting our lives in worthless jobs with worthless educations. When I met my husband, he was in the Navy. The moment he was discharged and went into the insurance world, they disregarded him as any sort of responsible person. It makes no sense but once again, this story is not about sense.

Maintaining a rational conversation or a witty joke during our yearly family dinner, was almost near impossible. Normally, my dad, my brother and I just sat and listened or zoned them out completely. Over the years the stories started racking up and formed a culmination of moments that can’t be traded for anything in the world.

Every Thanksgiving my mom had an old bachelor uncle show up. He had never been married or had a family. He’d walk in, in a suit from the seventies, greet everyone loudly, give my grandfather the middle finger, plop down at the kitchen table and light up a cigarette. This is the only person my mom has ever allowed to smoke in our family home.

Over dinner one year, he and my great-grandmother got in an argument over the location of a Dutch business. The conversation went from a simple discussion to an all-out fight. My great-grandmother, who had a temper, got so riled up, she stood up and slammed her fist on the table, exclaiming that he was wrong. My dad who was patiently listening, held up his hand to ask a question.

“Well, have any of you ever actually been to this place?” He logically asked.

They both replied no and my dad just sat back in his chair in satisfaction. My brother and I, had to hold back the tides of our laughter.

There was also the Thanksgiving, where in the middle of dinner, a discussion over dentures came up. My dad, brother and I watched in horror as no less than four people all took their dentures out at the table to compare them! It was the middle of dinner! It was disgusting on so many levels! Ironically, years later I worked for a dentist who specialized in dentures.

There was another Thanksgiving where one of my uncles came to the table and started lightening the mood with a round of dirty jokes. My brother and I watched our dad, sitting at the table seething in anger. I remember pulling my napkin up to my face so that he couldn’t see me laugh and cringe all at the same time.  

There was also the famous food poisoning year. The night before my favorite holiday, I came down with the worst case of food poisoning I’ve ever had. My husband sat on the bathroom floor of our small apartment trying to comfort me while calling my mom and letting her know we weren’t going to make it to family dinner. To this day I don’t understand why my mom felt a need to tell the entire family that I was down with food poisoning. The entire dinner conversation, as related to me by my brother, was everyone sharing their best and worst food poisoning stories.

Everyone was one-upping each other. The winner went to one of my uncles who told his famous story about getting diarrhea in Seattle and the emergency that required him to rip off the sleeve of his shirt. My brother actually came to visit me while I was dying on the couch, to relay the events of the one Thanksgiving I missed. The following year my mom bought my uncle some cottonelle-on-the-go as a gag gift.

My dad started carving the turkey as a way of guarding the roasted bird from my uncle’s unwashed hands. The man simply couldn’t leave the main course alone. The moment it came out of the oven, he’d be pulling pieces of the meat and skin off, popping them into his bearded face. My grandmother too. They’d both assure us their hands were clean and act as if the request to leave the bird alone was ridiculous. I mean who wouldn’t want to eat turkey that had been handled by a dozen bare hands?

My favorite Thanksgiving of all was the day our great uncle passed gas at the table. My mom had arranged us in a seating pattern. Due to some family squabbling, I ended up at the kids table, away from my husband. That is a completely separate story that I may tell later. To this day, as a thirty-five year old woman, I still sit at the kids table. Anyway, my husband was seated next to my great uncle. The man took a bite of his food, belched loudly and then lifted up his leg to trumpet out a fart that echoed throughout the entire dining room. Without missing a beat or even bothering to apologize, he just kept on eating.

My husband’s eyes shot up, he gave me this panicked look where he wasn’t sure if he should laugh or ignore it. My brother who stopped caring years ago busts out laughing. I’m holding my napkin up to my mouth wondering how I’m going to contain my laughter. Just as I feel it bursting out of me, I look over to my dad. He’s sitting at the head of the table, glaring at the entire family, in absolute disgust! I held it together. I don’t even think my great uncle knew he had done it or maybe he simply didn’t care.

We have other stories as well, of debating politics, of watching Braveheart for the fifteenth year in a row because it’s the only movie the family could ever agree on. Of the time my grandmother tried to gather all the children around and read them a thanksgiving story. By the time she had finished the only one still listening was the family dog! Or the time my Uncle left the table half way through dinner and disappeared. After a few minutes of noticing his absence, we hear loud snoring coming from the living room.

I told the family, “The tryptophan must have kicked in!”

 I’m not sure if they understood my remark.

Life changes though, our older family members have all but passed away. Our dinners have become more civilized but still we share the stories. Thanksgiving is still my favorite holiday. Ironically, my oldest daughter’s birthday occasionally falls on Thanksgiving so I think it was truly meant to be.

It took me over twenty years to be able to admit how crazy my mom’s family was and to be able to look back at the holidays without embarrassment. What used to fill me with utter mortification now stands as a testament to our memories, every gas-filled, ill-humored moment!