Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Not to piss on a holiday or anything but I notice that everything Thanksgiving seems to be the same for me or at least follows the same schedule. This year was a little different because my uncle (Dad's brother) and his daughters were not here. My family has gone through quite a reorganization the last few years that has left certain holidays with a smaller turnout. Not that I had a big family to begin with but we are definitly atom-sized compared to the "nuclear family".
Anyway it always goes down like this: around 1-2 pm everyone who is coming shows up. The empty hugs and kisses abound and the starting drinks get poured. Everyone files into the family room and bullshits. The bullshitting has in years past been more like cold war verbal sparing. A lot of posturing and very subtle attacks on members of the family. I usually try to avoid talking to anyone and just sit there with a stupid smile on my face. It is easier to get through this subterfuge of family life if you act like Rain Man and then slip away when no one is looking. Oh, did I mention Thanksgiving is always at my house! Which means, my escape is limited to literally hiding in the house. Back to the schedule.
After the opening bullshitting, at some point usual 2-3pm the food is ready and it seems like it takes and eternity to actually get it on the table. In years past we have had to have two tables, not because we are large numbers, but rather because we are large people in small rooms. If the meal is in one room, we say "Grace" which is fine until it keeps going and going. "let us not forget our dearly departed great great aunt edna on the O'Neill side of the family who used to collect stuffed squirrels and had a heavy hand with the bourbon..." You get my point. Then it is time to get food. Now if the entire family is there, meaning my uncle's family (Dad's side) and my aunt and uncle (Mom's sister) then it means the cold war goes hot and you have to fight for food. There is no order of passing things around the table, it is a very unorganized guerilla attack on the various dishes (which never change from year to year). Now I was brought up with table manners. Generally I don't use them unless circumstances insist it. You know, family dinners, out with girls, etc etc. Why I am possessed to use my manners at Thanksgiving is a mental handicap I do not understand, because what ends up happing is while two people are attacking the stuffing and three are hitting the turkey, I sit there and in a rather mousey voice ask "Can you please pass the peas?" To which my requests go unanswered until I finally get so frustrated I start barking at people and then everyone looks at me like I am the one with the problem.
Next on the itinerary comes the post dinner gossiping and debating on how our various lives could be better. What we all fail to realize is that they would be better if you just shut the hell up and actually do what you say. Eventually dessert and coffee make its way around and we get the usual I can't eat that it will make me fat or I am too full for that. BULLSHIT! You aren't gonna tell me that inside the stomach you can't make room! I saw how much food you put away to being with! If you were really concerned about your weight you would sit there and eat cellery. So instead of trying to make yourself not feel guilty about what a gluttonous fuck you are, shut up and eat the cheesecake!
After all is said and done, we have two groups of people. Those that seem to wonder off and pass out somewhere only to drool on themselves and those that keep drinking and fight over which football game to watch. Me, I generally disappear and go play xbox or whatever video game system I have at the time and do my best to blow everything up on screen.
Eventually people realize that there is no more food and no more beer and then run outta here like the place is on fire. "It's been fun but I gotta go..." Fill in the blank with excuse.
Once everyone leaves the house becomes so quiet. It is really amazing just how silent it is on Thanksgiving night. I don't think it is just my house that is like that either but it is truly surreal.
That is the yearly Thanksgiving schedule and you would think someone would have gotten sick of these yearly rituals. Come on! Let's change the beat! But no it is always the same anticlimatic mundane day that is has been since I was 5.
It it isn't abundantly clear, I hate Thanksgiving. I have hated it for as long as I can remember. I don't know why, maybe it is because I have a sense of people invading my house without my OK. Don't really know why? I am sure if I got to the bottom of it, it would be really childish. On top of it all my grandfather has been dead now since 2001. I was really close with him and I don't think I have ever let him go. Towards the end it was hard to talk, just because I was a 20 something punk and he was 83 year old Chief Petty Officer. But I loved him a lot and he was one of those people that you could just watch and he would do something so slight and it would either amaze me or crack me up! Maybe we didn't need to talk as much the older we got, maybe we knew what the other was thinking. I hated seeing him in the nursing home, my grandfather was meant to be on a ship or in a car travelling, seeing the world, and sharing stories with people over a pint. I think the only trip I ever took with him was when I was 7 or 8 and the entire family went to Disney World. I remember going to this one location in the park, not really sure where, but you could rent these mini speed boats. Of course, I was too small to be allowed on one by myself (happened to me all the time!) so Grampa got on it with me and as we pulled away and got about 100 yards out, he let me drive. I think he lost whatever hair he had left but he pretty much let me run that thing into the ground. Everything we did together was a lesson and I am ashamed to say I usually forgot most of them. However, and I can't say this is true for sure, but I am willing to bet that day in the boat he was probably teaching me the difference between "port" and "starboard" and all sorts of other nautical terms. He was a good man, the best kind of man, and I miss him.
Funny how this holiday makes me bitch but in the end I remember that I have something to be thankful for. Regardless of how you feel about the holiday and your family and whatever traditions you may hold...it just wouldn't be the same I guess. I know I am thankful for having the best grandfather the world has ever seen. Not even sure why I started to write this entry, definitly didn't think it would go the way it did. Sometimes I guess even the most cynical of us can surprise ourselves every now and again. I don't really know what else to write, I kind of hit a quiet place...so I think I am gonna take the cue...
Good night
The Edge