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Well 2002 Subaru, I don't mean to one-up your story, but holidays at my former in-laws place were even worse than your austere, barefoot day of male subjugated, dull, joyless woe. My former in-laws would invariably each year put off buying all of the food until maybe 30 minutes prior to the store closing around 4:30pm on Thanksgiving, and often times the store had closed. This wasn't being on a tight budget or no money issue as they were comfortably middle class, but just tremendous, habitual procrastination and disorganization. They would then make mad dashes around town to other places like Wal-Mart or grocery stores in other towns in desperate attempt to get the holiday food in time. Sometimes, parts of the meal were purchased from still open gas stations or drug stores (i.e. If the grocery store closed while they were scrambling around shopping and they weren't done.) in desperate bid to get whatever needed holiday meal items. It was total, frantic, chaos and stress. They would finally get home and begin cooking in a panic around 7-8 pm, and we often wouldn't eat until after midnight. Sometimes, there may have been cream cheese and Ritz crackers saved for special occasions and passed out 5pm to stave off hunger, and these were closely monitored by the family patriarch to ensure no one took more than just a few. He would guard the cracker plate and dole these out sparingly to bored, hungry, disappointed guests. No alcohol was allowed in the house, but small amounts of nonalcoholic-sparkly cider 'wine' was served later at dinner.
The kids in the family would throw together a rather bland meal of flake potatoes out of the box, stuffing from box, jar cranberry sauce, gravy, and my former MIL would spend an inordinate amount of time for hours on her salad thinking it was this very special, delectable creation. It was really just a tossed vingegarette salad with a few common fixings like carrots and onions but it would take her all night to make this. While the meal was being cooked until midnight, my mother in law would constantly get distracted from making her salad, and would CONSTANTLY corner the newcomer in-laws by reading page after page from her books about vitamins, the end times, demons, or speaking in tongues. All night, she would be angling to get the targeted in-law to go back to her room with her and speak in tongues in order to become saved.
The rest of the family used the trapped in-law as a convenient way to keep her occupied while they all went about chatting, cooking, watching tv, playing games, talking on the phone, etc relieved that they weren't the target of this for this one night. Essentially, the in-law would be trapped in a corner apart from the rest of the family for LITERALLY hours listening to her read pages and pages aloud to you from her books. There was NO escaping this, and my own spouse would try to rescue me but to no avail. Ultimately, the family were guilted and conditioned by their dad to let her do this. If you tried to get up, she would shadow behind you still reading aloud or trying to get you to speak in tongues, and if you flat out asked her to please stop doing it, she would start crying. Her husband would get somber and upset like, 'She means well. You've rocked the boat. Can't you just deal with it? Look what I have to deal with now on my holiday.' After the meal ended around 1am, she then wanted everyone to dance to Latin music at 2am in the living room with these tambourines she would pass out to everyone. If you tried to go to bed, she would become very upset, possibly cry, and one time she passive aggressively played her tambourine loudly outside my bedroom door at 3am to enact revenge for me going to bed! Her sleep schedule was awake all night and sleep all day, and she has always expected guests at their place to be on this schedule too! This has caused so many conflicts in that family once grandkids arrived because she would always want the little grandkids awake all night with her.
Shudder! I'm glad those tedious holidays are behind me! My husband and I stayed at a hotel in the city yesterday and had lovely, festive pre-dinner cocktails at a skyscraper lounge overlooking the city followed by a wonderful Thanksgiving buffet at the hotel. We had a nice piece of chocolate pie and a White Russian to toast in the holidays on a patio listening to holiday music. Those dark, oppressed Thanksgiving holidays are thankfully behind me!
What do you think Subaru 2002? Would you rather be barefoot talking non-politics all day OR trailed around by a crazy woman trying to get you to speak in tongues?!?
Did you know about that crazy before you married into it? I would have taken off RUNNING.
Wow, bet they're just knocking down your door to get in there!
No problems having family or friends over for dinner. Most like that there's no politics or religion allowed. Most people don't want to discuss those things at a family dinner......nothing but trouble comes out of those discussions! There's a time and place.
I read about grape races in the microwave in Dave Barry's column.
Pour a little oil over the dish of the microwave. Then with some friends, you pick out your grapes. Make a hole in the little end of the grapes and line them up on one side of the microwave and turn it on.
The microwave heats up the water in the grape which comes out of the hole as steam and propels the grapes across the microwave. First grape to the other side wins.
Well 2002 Subaru, I don't mean to one-up your story, but holidays at my former in-laws place were even worse than your austere, barefoot day of male subjugated, dull, joyless woe. My former in-laws would invariably each year put off buying all of the food until maybe 30 minutes prior to the store closing around 4:30pm on Thanksgiving, and often times the store had closed. This wasn't being on a tight budget or no money issue as they were comfortably middle class, but just tremendous, habitual procrastination and disorganization. They would then make mad dashes around town to other places like Wal-Mart or grocery stores in other towns in desperate attempt to get the holiday food in time. Sometimes, parts of the meal were purchased from still open gas stations or drug stores (i.e. If the grocery store closed while they were scrambling around shopping and they weren't done.) in desperate bid to get whatever needed holiday meal items. It was total, frantic, chaos and stress. They would finally get home and begin cooking in a panic around 7-8 pm, and we often wouldn't eat until after midnight. Sometimes, there may have been cream cheese and Ritz crackers saved for special occasions and passed out 5pm to stave off hunger, and these were closely monitored by the family patriarch to ensure no one took more than just a few. He would guard the cracker plate and dole these out sparingly to bored, hungry, disappointed guests. No alcohol was allowed in the house, but small amounts of nonalcoholic-sparkly cider 'wine' was served later at dinner.
The kids in the family would throw together a rather bland meal of flake potatoes out of the box, stuffing from box, jar cranberry sauce, gravy, and my former MIL would spend an inordinate amount of time for hours on her salad thinking it was this very special, delectable creation. It was really just a tossed vingegarette salad with a few common fixings like carrots and onions but it would take her all night to make this. While the meal was being cooked until midnight, my mother in law would constantly get distracted from making her salad, and would CONSTANTLY corner the newcomer in-laws by reading page after page from her books about vitamins, the end times, demons, or speaking in tongues. All night, she would be angling to get the targeted in-law to go back to her room with her and speak in tongues in order to become saved.
The rest of the family used the trapped in-law as a convenient way to keep her occupied while they all went about chatting, cooking, watching tv, playing games, talking on the phone, etc relieved that they weren't the target of this for this one night. Essentially, the in-law would be trapped in a corner apart from the rest of the family for LITERALLY hours listening to her read pages and pages aloud to you from her books. There was NO escaping this, and my own spouse would try to rescue me but to no avail. Ultimately, the family were guilted and conditioned by their dad to let her do this. If you tried to get up, she would shadow behind you still reading aloud or trying to get you to speak in tongues, and if you flat out asked her to please stop doing it, she would start crying. Her husband would get somber and upset like, 'She means well. You've rocked the boat. Can't you just deal with it? Look what I have to deal with now on my holiday.' After the meal ended around 1am, she then wanted everyone to dance to Latin music at 2am in the living room with these tambourines she would pass out to everyone. If you tried to go to bed, she would become very upset, possibly cry, and one time she passive aggressively played her tambourine loudly outside my bedroom door at 3am to enact revenge for me going to bed! Her sleep schedule was awake all night and sleep all day, and she has always expected guests at their place to be on this schedule too! This has caused so many conflicts in that family once grandkids arrived because she would always want the little grandkids awake all night with her.
Shudder! I'm glad those tedious holidays are behind me! My husband and I stayed at a hotel in the city yesterday and had lovely, festive pre-dinner cocktails at a skyscraper lounge overlooking the city followed by a wonderful Thanksgiving buffet at the hotel. We had a nice piece of chocolate pie and a White Russian to toast in the holidays on a patio listening to holiday music. Those dark, oppressed Thanksgiving holidays are thankfully behind me!
What do you think Subaru 2002? Would you rather be barefoot talking non-politics all day OR trailed around by a crazy woman trying to get you to speak in tongues?!?
LOL, my MIL (now deceased) was a fabulous cook and if she planned a meal and gave a set time was fabulous. She had the not so fabulous habit of saying she was going cook dinner, so we would not eat on the way back to her house which was in a remote vacation destination 45 minutes from the interstate on a small island. One year, the day after after Thanksgiving, we had gone Christamas shopping several hours a way at the outlet mall (and there was literally everything to chose from food wise), she said she was going to cook so we came on back to the island about 7:30pm. No signs of food prep going on. She finally pulls out a hunk of frozen fish and we were like, heck no, so we we drive 45 minutes over the bay back into a small town and found a Ryan's open after 9pm and ate.
Tell me - when/where is the "time and place"? How about in the living room before dinner?
Why would someone invite adults to their home and then put a clamp on what they can discuss (especially if the discussion remains civil)?
I don't want to go somewhere or be around a host who has discussion rules, as if I'm (and others) a child.
People with these silly rules come across as controlling, overly-sensitive, self-centered sore losers.
And ever since President Trump's been elected there's been much more of this nonsense of "No talking politics!" It's an immature, "crying sour grapes" move.
Sounds like a lot of people here are mad about that outcome of the last election. Either that or they're inviting people into their homes with a lack of emotional control.
Assume much?
At one of the two Thanksgiving dinners with friends to which I was invited, it was the conservatives who brought up political topics (out of the blue; unrelated to any previous discussion) at the dinner table. I am a moderate Democrat. I kept my mouth shut, until someone related to the hostess said what Moore and his ilk did 40 years ago didn't matter. At that point, I stated that a 32 year old hitting on a 16 year old (should have said 14 year old) was disgusting, and there was no statute of limitations where minors were involved.
Then I (successfully) changed the subject to Masterpiece Theatre.
By "day of pain" I mean having to be somewhere you don't want to be.
For me, it's my Chinese in-laws house. It's not that I dislike them, or that I'm unappreciative of the meal being prepared, it's just that they're so damn boring and uptight ... No discussion of current events or politics allowed and having to sit around all day with my shoes off makes me feel trapped, naked and controlled.
It's a female-dominated family, so the men are expected to sit and be quiet. Torture.
I just sit, make small talk about the weather and sports and tough it out.
Anybody else have family like this and how do you cope?
Yeah, I used to be in a situation like that. Years of it. It got worse after my Dad died because he was the parent I was closest to and had the most in common with. Basically we would shut the den door and turn on college football and I'm not a big football fan. I would also use mental ju-jitsu to get through it: "It's a few hours! Deal with it!" Lol.
So what happens now? Virtually nothing(Yeh!) because all of the major "culprits" died a decade ago and there are no big t-giving gatherings anymore. As brutal and selfish as that sounds, I never shared my honest feelings about it with those deceased people because I did care about them, mostly respected them, and I did not want to hurt their feelings.
Tell me - when/where is the "time and place"? How about in the living room before dinner?
Why would someone invite adults to their home and then put a clamp on what they can discuss (especially if the discussion remains civil)?
I don't want to go somewhere or be around a host who has discussion rules, as if I'm (and others) a child.
People with these silly rules come across as controlling, overly-sensitive, self-centered sore losers.
And ever since President Trump's been elected there's been much more of this nonsense of "No talking politics!" It's an immature, "crying sour grapes" move.
Sounds like a lot of people here are mad about that outcome of the last election. Either that or they're inviting people into their homes with a lack of emotional control.
You asked me to respond to your questions. I have bolded your questions above.
Perhaps hosts and others would prefer to avoid certain topics in the interests of civility and ensuring that ALL those at the table (or in the living room ahead of time) remain in good spirits, rather than engaging in political or other controversial debates while ingesting Thanksgiving Dinner (Alka-Seltzer, anyone??).
And who's to say that some of those at the table (or in the living room) are NOT children?? There were eight kids present on Thanksgiving Day where I was, with about eight or ten teens present at a second gathering last evening. It's just not the time or place for unpleasantness. Sure, there's a time and place to discuss current affairs with the younger generation - but around the Thanksgiving table is not it.
It's not a question of censorship but of civility and appropriate and considerate behavior.
Can you tell me how anyone can predict whether discussions on a very loaded topic about which many, if not most, people have very definite opinions will remain civil?
There's all the rest of the world and all it holds to talk about - why choose potentially unpleasant and divisive topics on this very special holiday?
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