Meet My Family

        Whenever I spend the day with my extended family, I always leave wondering if we are actually related. I love them and don't mean to disparage, it's just that they are all a bunch of lunatics. We are all so different, and sometimes we have trouble adjusting our strong personalities to accommodate one another. Even simple colloquial conversation can quickly turn into an argument; and heated debates are not uncommon. 

      Thanksgiving is the ultimate culmination of all of this craziness; the time we find it most appropriate to unleash all of our pent up aggravation and get it all out in the open. We become unconcerned with trivial things like giving thanks or people's feelings; we find it much more therapeutic to tell everyone what we really think. We take pleasure from pushing each other's buttons, and I don't think one person could honestly claim they stayed sang-froid throughout the night. 

       Dinner started with a riveting story from my vegan cousin about the beauty and wonder of turkeys, and how cruel it was that millions are slaughtered every year. We tried to ignore her malcontent, but she surreptitiously slipped it in whenever she could. It's not that I don't sympathize with their plight, but I didn't want to be reminded of my status as a turkey murderer as I ate my dinner. Finally my aunt declared a moratorium on the topic; one of the many moratoriums to be declared during dinner. My sister then spilled soda all over my brothers food, and he proceeded to castigate her with unusual harshness even for my family. This of course became a huge production; we split up between yelling at my brother and cleaning the table. 

       Somewhere in between this chaos, my grandmother decided Thanksgiving just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without letting us know what ungrateful brats we all are. Of course this speech was mainly directed at the adults, and her supercilious comments did not go unnoticed. I spent the rest of the night with a smile on my face as the adults struggled to defend themselves. 

        The funniest part is, I actually ended up having a lot of fun tonight. That's not to say I don't think they're crazy, because I still do. But as I've gotten older, I've learned to accept every member of my family for who they are, and appreciate them for what they have to offer. And I've stopped distancing myself from it all, and I now realize that I am just as crazy as they are. I'll try to remember this in mid-December, when we all get together for Hannukah, and we repeat the same cycle for eight crazy nights...