She’s seventeen. She hasn’t seen my post (she stayed at a friend’s house last night), but I did tell her how great she was and how proud I was of her.
Usually she gets pretty resentful about the amount of work involved in hosting the holidays (“Why are we doing all this? I don’t even like most of these people!”), especially since I tend to get a little nuts beforehand with the cleaning (“Everything must SPARKLE!!!”) and the menu planning and the prep. (Why? I don’t know. I don’t like most of these people either!) But there was no grumbling at all yesterday. I have no idea what brought on this sudden burst of maturity, but it was awfully nice, and I really can’t even describe the feeling of watching her bustling around the kitchen, and seeing a woman. I’m a little verklempt.
Mine was pretty good; my sister-in-law is a good cook though she seems to own no potholders (what is up with that?) and my older niece is a delight, but the 7-year-old niece shrieked in my ear all day and I had to take an Imitrex at the dinner table.
The main room of my uncle’s house has his giant-screen TV, on which my relatives all sat and watched The Godfather marathon on AMC the entire time. Which meant that I couldn’t let my small children eat in that room, and I couldn’t talk to my aunts/uncles/cousins or socialize, because they were watching a movie. This includes during the meal time, by the way. And when I suggested that maybe we could turn the movie off just while the kids were eating, people thought I was being a bitch.
This may be the last year that we go to my uncle’s house for T’giving. I dislike family gatherings where the TV is left on the entire time anyway, and for it to be a violent mobster movie (that I know they have all seen like 384903 times anyway!) was a little over the top for me.
What is truly disgusting is that this guy is educated, and used to be a school teacher. He says things around his grandchildren that he should be punched in the crotch for. “Hey, you know waht NBA stands for, doncha? N****er Basketball Association.” Then he gives this smarmy, sneering chortle that just makes your skin crawl. I’ll give thanks when the bastard dies.
