Monday, November 13, 2006

Rambling Post

I've just spent the weekend with out-of-town family. Luckily, its family I love and enjoy, but after a while being around so many people wears me down. My hubby, kids, and I came home after lunch and went to bed.

Unfortunately, I haven't the strength or energy to be witty and informative today. And my internet service is spotty, so I can't wait for inspiration to strike. :) That's okay. Tomorrow will be exciting enough for all of us. (Don't forget tomorrow is our birthday party! Woohoo!)

With the holidays approaching with the speed of a race car, I know most of us will be spending lots of quality time with our families. Only ten days until you get to hear all about Uncle Henry's gallbladder surgery, your dear aunt's newest kitchen gadget, and your deviant nephew's latest incarceration (what does this tell you about my family?) over turkey and dressing.

The book I'm currently plotting is about family too. Three cousins who return to the home town after the patriarch of the family dies, only to find themselves embroiled in some complicated situations and, of course, the lives of some beautiful women. So today I thought we'd talk about family. Tell me some of the oddball stories about your family. What's the funniest holiday memory you have? Favorite family holiday traditions? Weirdest member? (you know you have one) I'll consider it a "character study". :)

Angel

PS I'll choose one commenter to receive a book today!

19 comments:

Maureen said...

The year I was pregnant with my daughter her due date was days after Thanksgiving so my husband invited my family to our house and he made a big Thanksgiving dinner.

He started out with squash soup, something no one in my family had ever had. While everyone is eating the soup and complimenting my husband my father smiles and says, "Your mother hates squash." My poor mother was so embarrassed but she gave my father some dirty looks, valiantly finished her soup and proclaimed it delicious.

So now every Thanksgiving someone asks her if she wants some squash soup.

Playground Monitor said...

I've made pumpkin pies for years at Thanksgiving and only learned last year that my older son hates it. If he'd told me, I'd have made one pumpkin (cause I LOVE it) and one of another kind, which is what I'll do now.

I'm trying to remember the oddball stories so I can share. Apparently I've blocked them out completely. :grin: I think my favorite tradition is that we still do Christmas stockings. On Christmas Eve I'm rushing about to stuff everyone's stocking so "Santa" will have come overnight.

:sniff: I'm not sure my kids will be home for Thanksgiving this year. #2 son may have to work and #1 son and his wife now have to divide their holidays, which I understand completely. I remember doing that too.

I'm sure someone else's post will jog a memory.

PM

Problem Child said...

Oh, my dear aunt Mamie...God rest her soul. She was a bit of a pack rat, but that runs in the family.

When she died and we had to clean out her house, the term pack rat took on new meaning (and kind of became a contest):

"Hey, I just found a box of tree bark from 1972."

"I see that and raise you a box of dated envelopes, each one containing the hair she trimmed that day."

"I raise you 150 styrofoam trays."

God love her...

Andrea Laurence AKA Smarty Pants said...

Pick one? Just one? Out of my carnival side show of a family? I don't think I can do it. Some family secrets are better kept that way, really.

Maybe a Thanksgiving story, then. One year my uncle said he couldn't come, so we went about eating, when he just showed up. He sat down, ate with us, sat there for about 20 minutes, when there was a ring at the door. When we answered, it was his wife. Apparently, he'd come by to drop off something and had left her in the car the whole time while they were on their way to eat somewhere else.

That same uncle several years later had a 3 year old hissy fit when I suggested that for once, my three uncles wash dishes instead of eating and flopping useless in front of the couch. The other two relented, but he sat down on the couch, his arms firmly crossed over his chest and watched football, ignoring me.

SP :)

Katherine Bone said...

Oh, Thanksgiving...the day we celebrate family and all that we should be thankful for. So we're all going to spill the beans today. Hmmm. I suppose I could disclose something to you.

Surprisingly, when I brought my husband, then my boyfriend, home for the first time I had to warn him about my family. Many odd ball characters abound. And to warn him ahead of time was giving him a chance to run, sight unseen. For one thing, an uncle (who has since disowned me for even stranger reasons) suffered an accident while welding a long, long time ago. Because of this he lost both legs below mid calf. He's done real well, learned how to use prothestic legs but on this occassion chose to answer the door when we arrived dragging himself on the floor and reaching up to grab the door knob. To my mortification, the door opened and there he was, on the floor, without his legs on, to welcome us. You really had to be there but my husband deserves a medal for sticking around. Inside the house awaited an even stranger menagerie just waiting to embarrass me further. Huahuahuahua!

Kathy

Kira Sinclair - AKA Instigator said...

Well....when you come from a large family your chances of having a few interesting characters goes up exponentially. I won't go into details because frankly, it would be my luck that some of them have stumbled onto the blog and would fight over just who I was talking about. Of course, they also have detailed stories of my awkward years so....there's always blackmail to worry about :-)

We have so many holiday traditions. Growing up, we were far away from the extended family so the six of us relied on each other and really developed a lot of traditions that pulled us together as a family.

Instigator

Unknown said...

My husband and I started doing Thanksgiving at our house with him, myself, and our two children last year. We invite both sets of parents, but that is it. Over the last few years, it had gotten so crazy trying to go to all his family dinners and the ones on my side. We both have big families, so now we do try to plan Christmas celebrations with everyone during the week of Christmas. Thanksgiving was just too hard trying to fit all that into one day. I like it so much better now, because we really have time to spend together as a family without the rush.

As far as craziest relative, it would go to my uncle that sneaks to the garage to drink every holiday. By the end of the day he is always completely inebriated. He then proceeds to inform the other family members on how to improve their lives lol. :)

Andrea Laurence AKA Smarty Pants said...

What is it about uncles??

SP

Playground Monitor said...

Yahoo! I just found out #1 son, his wife and the grandbaby will be here for Thanksgiving. #2 son is still iffy but I'm keeping my fingers crossed he'll be able to make it.

PM

Word verification: zdktdczx Sheesh!

Carol M said...

I've been thinking and thinking and thinking and I can't come up with any holiday stories! I guess I have a boring family! lol We just get together and eat and talk. All I can say is it's far from quiet! Kids are running around, the tv is on and everyone is talking at once!

CrystalGB said...

It is always interesting during the holidays for my husband and I. We both have large families. His family is loud and often make very embarassing comments to us. We don't do many things with his family. My family is pretty normal except you never know what my sister -in-laws will say to cause a fight.

Problem Child said...

That's okay Carol, you can borrow one of my crazy relatives if you need to spice up your holiday story collection. I have several cuckoos in the nest...

Verification: fmpfpmm--the sound of my mother and aunt putting their hands over my mouth to keep me from sharing family stories....

Jennifer Y. said...

I can't really think of any funny holiday stories either...although I am sure I have plenty of them...maybe I blocked them out.

I have several odd/interesting relatives though. When my great grandmother passed away we found little slips of paper or notations on random objects about where she put things and what time she had breakfast dinner or supper. Her Bible was full of them. We couldn't figure out many of them...it was as if she wrote in code. We are still not quite sure why she wrote down the times.

This will be the first Thanksgiving and Christmas since losing my grandaddy...the last time we saw him was last Thanksgiving. It was the first time that almost the entire family (kids, grandkids, great grandkids, etc.) got together in years. He was so happy.

catslady said...

I know I must have more but one that I can think of is discovering after I made a potato casserole that I couldn't find a band-aid that was missing from my finger - I had to tell in case it was in there - eww-yuk. Luckily, I found it on the bottom of my shoe but not 'til after dinner lol.

I'm the Aunt Mamie of the family but my nephew and bil are close seconds lol.

I have two traditions for Christmas. One is tree-trimming with some friends and family and the other is reading "The Littlest Angel" and never getting through it without sobbing so my girls always bring me a box of kleenex first.

Carol M said...

LOL Thank you Problem Child! :)

Lois said...

It's small for us for the holidays because as older families tend to do, they died over the years. But at least it's much quieter. And I'm sure some of you would know what I mean. LOL :)

Our tradition is one I can't stand. We open our presents on Christmas Eve. I would like to do it the next day like one is supposed to. . . LOL But for years, it's always been, oh it's almost Christmas and Polish Christmas you do that or whatever. Maybe one of these days, I'll get my way. *snort*

Lois

Jeanette J said...

I'm the weirdest member at Christmas. I'm the one that wears the reindeer antlers and had to be stopped from wearing an Elf costume last year by my husband

Angel said...

No white Christmases for us here in Alabama. It rarely snows. It would be a miracle if it actually happened on Christmas day.

Love the family stories!!! Mine mostly involve never knowing what certain members of my family will say and get everyone all riled up. I'm the type of person who just wants everyone to get along, but some people just can't keep their 2 cents to themselves.

Oh, and in my Dad's family, you never know who might will show up for dinner. Will it be one of the uncle's wives (#1, 2, 3....) or some woman they picked up in a bar? Who knows? :) I can't keep half of them straight anymore anyway. (And this will probably be the one day one of them will decide to read here, though they've never done it before!)

Angel

Anonymous said...

How funny! I was going to tell the Aunt Mamie story about the hair clippings. However, Kim, you forgot to point out that she was an aunt by marriage, which makes us all feel better. :)

I like our tradition of getting together, last year at Thanksgiving, and making hot tamales. For those of you who don't know, hot tamales, East TN style, involve mixing hamburger and sausage with spices and rolling it into balls. These meat balls are then wrapped in a combination of corn meal and water and all of this is wrapped in a special wrapping paper, tied with a string and boiled.

This is best done in an assembly line while drinking sangria and magaritas (or drink of your choice,) playing music, talking and dancing - most of the dancing starts after a couple of drinks. (Music from "The Big Chill" is alway a good choice.)

When the tameles are cooked we cover them with chili and enjoy them with another drink.

We make enough tamales for everyone to have a couple dozen to take home and freeze to eat later...with a drink :)

PC's Mom (who forgot her password)