I thought that thread was about dysfunctional families, but turned out to be about cooking. Instead, why don’t we share our tales of familial drama, thrown food and sharp words?
I’ll go first. Two members of my family hate each other. One of them recently started medication, which had had a stabilizing effect the last few weeks. Tonight, relations broke down again into a AAA drama (Animosity, Alchoholism, and substance Abuse). So I had to escort one of them home, and the dinner was marred by the fact that we had all hope for ONCE, just for FUCKING ONCE, we could sit down and share a meal without any bullshit.
I was thinking of starting a thread like this but mine would include good and bad dramas.
Our drama was that a brother I (we) hadn’t seen or talked to in about 7 years came to dinner. There is not real reason he hasn’t talked to anyone in seven or so years, he’s just not real chatty! It was good to see him. He had aged quite a bit and was only vaguley aware that I had had kids. …he was surprised they were so big!
Well I will start bt saying next year I am having Thanksgiving at my house. Family free.
We were all sitting around the table joking around while we ate. I made a joke. It angered my father so he told me to “Shut the F$%^ Up” he wasn’t joking. So The Boy and I left.
Ours was pretty mellow, actually. The only real drama was that one of my sisters didn’t show because her husband and one of her kids were sick.Fine. I can live with that. But then my niece (her other child) called her mom and we learned that my sister decided to drive 25 miles to do some shopping while her sick kid and husband were asleep during the afternoon. Seems to me she could have driven five miles to spend some time with her family instead. My two other sisters and I were a bit offended that she’d rather go buy shampoo (according to my niece, “She just went to get the stuff we really needed today so she can do the real shopping tomorrow.” Nice.) than spend time with us.
[QUOTE=CynicalGabeI thought that thread was about dysfunctional families,.[/QUOTE]
OK, maybe I’ll just change my username to Disfunctional.
Thanksgiving is just the 2 of us. I cleared the table (where all the unopened mail usually sits) and set it with seasonal placemats and napkins - chased the cats away a couple of times. When I announce the meal is ready, movingfinger
comes in, slams his plate down and leaves. What the fu??? OK, fine, You can eat alone. I go to the bedroom, finally fall asleep (crying, but don’t tell). So, our Thanksgiving was nada, zip, zip. But we did reconcile when he came to bed - he didn’t mean to complain that the meal was late, and I was too ready to find fault. Please don’t let me become my stepmother.
Funny you should mention it. This is the last family gathering that my wife and I will attend, if my brother-in-law is going to be there. This has been building up for the past seven years (since we moved back to AK). My BIL is a virulent racist asshole. It’s no coincidence, IMO, that he’s also on the fascist fringe of the Republican party. For seven years I’ve listened to him poisoning his grandchildrens’ minds with his off-color racist jokes, and belittling my sister with his mocking comments. I’ve said nothing, as it’s her life and she seems content to have put up with this for the past 40 years.
Last night was the last straw, when he took verbal aim at my wife. Enough is enough. I love my sister and her kids and their kids, but if he is present, we will be absent in the future. It saddens me considerably that this awful trainwreck of a person can hold sway over my relationship with my only remaining family, but I simply will not tolerate an attack on my lover and best friend. I’ve already cancelled on the Christmas gathering. What a sorry SOB this guy is.
My sister threw a temper tantrum because no one “invited” her to dinner. It’s Thanksgiving, you need a gold edged engraved invitation to get out of bed and come to dinner? Not to mention, my dad did tell her twice to get out of bed (yes, she was in bed at 4.30 pm) and I told her a third time, and yet we still got treated to her stomping around the house screaming about how everyone is mean to her because we were having Thanksgiving dinner without her. (We’d just sat down and no one had eaten anything at that point.)
So, she got sent to her room without dinner.
Anyone care to guess how old my sister is? You’re thinking five or six, right? Alas, no, my sister is twenty-one years old. Obviously, you’re never too old to throw a temper tantrum during Thanksgiving dinner. It was truly an impressive display of immaturity.
My grandmother was taken to the hospital with serious abdominal pain. The good option is that it’s just an ulcer or something, and I don’t even know what the bad option is. We should find out by tonight.
On the upside, three friends and I decided none of us wanted to wait for a turn in the kitchen in the common room (we all stayed at school for the holiday). So we went driving, searching for someplace to eat We ended up at IHOP, had some decent chow, and it was cheap.
Semi- iIndirect family drama - my brother-in-law’s ex-wife had been promising for months that he could have the kids for Thanksgiving. Of course, a couple of days beforehand she comes up with some bullshit drama about how she can’t bring the kids from Iowa because her abusive live-in boyfriend got his car (which is in her name) repossessed for not making the payments, and then scrounged up money to put a down payment on another car, but when they were doing the paperwork at the dealership, up popped not one, but TWO outstanding arrest warrants, so the cops came and hauled him off to jail, so she has to use the money to bail out the abusive boyfriend instead of using it for gas to get here from Iowa with the kids…
…anyway, I think that’s what was going on, but my eyes started to glaze over right about the point the words “arrest warrant” were mentioned. Now that I think of it, I suppose I should call and check whether the kids ever made it here…my poor BIL was moping all day, wishing he were watching football with his kids, and calling them every 20 minutes. People suck.
You know how they say you should never come out to your family on major holidays? And how coming out to your family on Thanksgiving is a total cliché? Well, I did it in 1998.
aunt_mcl was saying how we should all take note that it was mr_and_mrs_cousin_mcl’s first Thanksgiving at the cottage as a married couple! So I blurted out, “Well as long as we’re talking about committed relationships, I’m dating a boy named Tom…”
There was two seconds of dead silence, then aunt_mcl said, “Okay! Who wants pie?”
My family is spookily drama-free.
(And then Matthew Shepard got murdered that weekend too, so you can imagine how that went chez _mcls.)
Not too bad this year. Everyone was trying to behave themselves, since they were meeting my fiance’s family for the first time. There were a few uncomfortable moments with one of my aunt’s relatives- he is a large 20-something boy who is mentally retarded. That’s no big deal, of course, but he seems to be developing some new Tourette’s-like symptoms. There were a few times when he would just suddenly scream and rush at people for no reason, which was pretty scary. We’re rarely around this guy and we just had no idea how to handle him.
My mom fussed at her brother for taking home most of the leftovers, since we still had a lot of family hanging around and he was just taking food for himself and his wife. (She was right, of course, but the ill will it engendered just wasn’t worth it.) Then the next day, when Mom was trying to talk to Grandma about who would get Grandma’s property when she died, it all got dragged up again. I just sat on the sidelines with the little beetles, watching and listening.
This year, the MsRobyn family Thanksgiving was remarkably drama-free. My cousin thoughtfully absented himself from the table, so there was no reason to have any.
However, past Thanksgivings have not gone so well. My older son died Thanksgiving, 1994, and in 2002, my Evil Aunt pulled a temper tantrum that came close to resulting in a restraining order. She died the following spring. So Thanksgiving is a holiday I can take or leave.
That said, ::looks over her shoulder:: Thank Og I don’t have to spend any holidays with Airman’s family this year. I volunteered to work Christmas and New Year’s weekends because I would sooner die than spend a day with his family, listening to them talk about themselves. I’d sooner spend it in the merry chaos of my own family, now that it’s actually merry.
This year was unbelievably Rockwellian. But I was surprised to see my 14 yr. old niece’s boyfriend, Jeremy, with us. Not because I dislike him – he’s a great kid – but because my mother would have thrown a fit if one of us had gone to someone else’s house for a Holiday.
Jeremy’s dad and step-mom split up just within the last week and his Dad was using the holiday to move out of her house. Jeremy’s mother took her younger kids up to Wisconsin leaving him with his dad. He probably didn’t want to go with her, but still…I bet being around dad right now is not a lot of fun.
I felt so bad for him. Looks like I’ve got a new nephew by association.
I think that fundamentalism is the world’s biggest evil.
And yet, at gathering after gathering, I manage to keep my mouth shut and talk about neutral topics.
Usually.
This Thanksgiving, however, I did get into an argument with several of them (and a mandatory tete-a-tete with my father) on the question of whether satanic cults are commiting mass murders/ church burnings/ animal sacrifices all over the country.
I know I shouldn’t bother arguing. I know we don’t even have the same definitions of ‘proof,’ ‘logic,’ or ‘reasonable.’ But somehow, I can’t help myself.
My brother, who has been in the brig for sixty days, got out on Wednesday. He called me early in the morning to let me know he’d be home for Thanksgiving, but to ask me not to tell the parents.
I told my sister, who cancelled her plans for the evening and immediately set to making his favorite pies.
We got a phone call at 10 PM. He was drunk and hadn’t left Maryland yet.
We found out Saturday that he got into a fight and will probably be back in the brig.
I spent Thanksgiving at the in-laws of a co-worker. He’s cool, his family was cool, the in-laws were cool. The biggest complaint I have is that I was subjected to War of the Worlds (the Spielberg/Cruise version); on the other hand, there was some good wine and I didn’t feel more than slightly socially awkward, so on the balance I’d have to say it was a big plus.
I highly recommended spending Thanksgiving thousands of miles away from family, especially estranged family. YMMV.
Nothing that bad, but my great grandma started choking at one point. Not seriously, she coughed it up and the Hemlich wasn’t necessary, but she’s really old so it scared us. She’s totally fine now though, she just forgot to put her teeth in.
This was a very boring Thanksgiving. Only 2 of my sisters and their family/SO showed - my brother went to CT with his girlfriend, and my other sister and her husband were with his family. My nephew was his usual anti-social, bratty self. My niece was looking for someone to give her $1000 for some sports camp. The cooking was a little “off” for some reason - dinner wan’t very good. No drama, but not a lot of fun. Except for the fact that my daughter has gone back to Orlando, I’m glad it’s done.
