Readership here probably skews old enough that most of you are already aware of this, but: There is nothing in the Constitution that requires you to spend the next four days with your relatives. Whether you’re too distant or broke to reach them without re-enacting a Steve Martin/Chevy Chase comedy, or just because certain members of your immediate gene pool should’ve been drowned in the shallow end, I am here to attest that it’s possible to develop a warm, enriching community ritual with a “chosen family” that will provide all the oxytocin/triptophan/endorphine enhancement required by any big-brained primate during the annual period marking the shortest days and darkest nights of the year.
In other words, this will be approximately the twenty-eighth year the Spousal Unit and I get together with somewhere between two and five dozen people organized around a nucleus of geeks who self-identified as boggies during the long LOTR interregum between hippie-chic Galadriels and mega-budget Peter Jackson epics. And our Fvcking Loved Ones are congregating in the greater Boston area this year, so for us it’s less freeway time with three dogs in the back seat and more schlep time between houses/hotels/last-minute grocery runs.
Consider this open thread your first official opportunity to share war stories…
cleek
wifey and i have always done T-day as a couple… just us, the cats, and all the food i can cook. no family to fuck it up.
bliss.
mr. whipple
@cleek:
Exactly the same here, Cleek. It’s awesome.
Not that we hate people or anything. Well, ….
demkat620
@cleek: Add to your bliss.
Ed Schultz just reported Delay found guilty in his money laundering case.
Happy Thanksgiving!
cleek
@demkat620:
sweet!
makes up for the burn i just gave myself taking the cast-iron skillet out of the oven.
freelancer
@demkat620:
I feel good!
MattR
Thanksgiving rocks. But then again I was born 6:30 pm on Thanksgiving Day so I my experiences may differ from most.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
The more I know about other people’s families, the more grateful I am for my own. But whoever your loved ones are, I hope you enjoy their company this weekend.
Phyllis
Holidays in my ‘growing up home’ were a misery. My mother did too much, wound herself up too much, and then would crash spectacularly. I think some of it was this desire for everything to be PERFECT. If the rice boiled over, well, katie bar the door.
My late hubbie and I did turkey day on our own, usually eating out somewhere cool and then going to the movies. The SO and I have also been on our own together the last couple of years, and it’s really how we like it. I don’t do drama.
abo gato
Woo Hoo! Tom Delay convicted on two counts…..one is money laundering…..!…..how sweet it would be for him to serve some time!
Oh, and back on topic, I kind of like not having a bunch of relatives that we need to entertain. After both sets of our parents died, my husband looked at me and said, it’s official, we’re orphans. So we cook up a storm and sometimes have friends over, but we don’t have to go visit anyone.
Bnut
Scene: 1 Bronx Jewish grandmother, 1 Kansas WASP grandma, both gathered round the table with a dozen of us
WASP G: The plane trip here hit turbulence. My back is sore.
Jewish G: Oh my God! Have you seen the hemorrhoid commercial where the man sits on the cactus!
WASP G drops her spoon, which cracks the soup bowl, and the soup burns her. Hilarity ensues.
gbear
Yup.
jeffreyw
We got started a bit early.
JohnR
Clubfoots, Stools, or Naugahydes?
Have fun, and try not to choke.
JPL
Is it wrong to call my right wing wacko brother to gloat about Delay’s conviction? Oh he lives in Houston. lol lol
Linda Featheringill
I agree with you. You don’t have to spend holidays with family.
It might be nice if you called your parents, though, if they are still around.
jeffreyw
@abo gato: LOL! The Missus and I are orphans too! Mrs J is in the kitchen baking the perfect pumpkin pie. I have two pans of dressing finished, the cranberry sauce, the sweet potato casserole. The turducken is thawed. I have to mash potatoes, make the green bean casserole, and drop the turkey into the roaster in the morning. Oh, and make gravy from the drippins. And bake the dinner rolls. Shit. I was nearly done till I started this comment.
Maude
@MattR:
Do you get a birthday cake? That would be so sweet.
Being born in the evening would excuse you from cooking, but you are stuck with the clean up. Happy birthday.
The Bearded Blogger
@jeffreyw: I have to confess, I don’t much like turkey, or stuffing. Also, I don’t like the effort to tastiness ratio for turkey.
As a good, liberal elitist, my wife an I have sushi on the holidays
FlyingToaster
Once every six or seven years we schlep down to Fort Myers and cook my mom a turkey. Once every three years we go over to my daughter’s godless-parents’ house for them to do the honors — we make the mashed potatoes, a stuffing, and sweet potatoes. All other years we drive up to my sister-in-law’s (and her 5 hellions), often supplying the turkey the day before, and the same sides.
The rest of our families can either take care of themselves, or go hang. I’m not flying 1500/2500/3500 miles to be stuck with cooking a turkey for able bodied adults.
Cris
I loved, and continue to love, the nuclear family I grew up in. But one year in college, after I blew off seeing a bunch of friends who were back in town in order to spend Thanksgiving day at the folks’ house, I realized halfway through the day that I had made a mistake. We just didn’t have enough interesting Thanksgiving traditions to make it a compelling “go home” holiday. So for 20 years, I mostly haven’t. There are far better times to travel.
Also, too: boggies? What the fuck is that? Neither Google nor Urban Dictionary is helping.
BGinCHI
Spending the whole day with most of the Anthropology Department.
It’s fun, and they know a lot about monkeys and Darwin.
And no, they don’t get most of the literature jokes.
Violet
@demkat620:
That makes my Thanksgiving, for sure. He’s deserves that and more.
MattR
@Maude: Thx. We usually do a steak and cake dinner on the Friday since nobody ever has room for cake after Thanksgiving dinner with pie for dessert. We don’t even bother trying for the actual day anymore. This has gradually been changing to combine the two on Thrusday as everyone has more and more crap going on with their lives that makes it hard to all be together for two straight days and nights.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@The Bearded Blogger:
In the LeftTurn household this year we are having roast pork. I’d like to say it was to show solidarity with the Dems (Save the Turkeys!) and give a middle finger to the GOP (Off the Pigs!), but really it is because we ate a lot of turkey last weekend and are all gobbled out for a while.
gbear
@abo gato: Yea, doing the orphan thing here too for a few years. Dad died just after Thanksgiving in 07. He had just moved into a nursing home and he hated it there and hated us for ‘making’ him do it. It was the worst, most stressful holiday in a long line of shitty family holidays. I still really hate this time of year.
…but knowing that Tom Delay was convicted makes it somewhat better.
Hal
@Cris
If my nerd speak is accurate, bogies are barrow-wights, from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Dennis SGMM
@Cris:
Only reference I know for boggies is that they were the main characters (Hobbits) in the Lord of the Rings parody Bored of the Rings.
The boggies were prone to over eating, treachery, greed, cowardice and backstabbing.
Cris
@Dennis SGMM: Ah, SGMM for the win. Thanks, I started to read BOTR but wasn’t in the right humorspace for it at the time.
Hal
Sarah Palin is attacking Michelle Obama again. This time for her anti-obesity compaign. Cause you know, parents can more than effectively control what their children ear without big brother or something. It’s like, in the constitution.
Though someone might want to remind Palin First Ladies don’t actually have any legislative power. God she’s an idiot.
The Bearded Blogger
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Pork! Now that’s meat I can get behind!
Maude
@gbear:
Members of my family used to land in the hospital during the holidays. That wasn’t fun.
Morbo
Nope, love my family and looking forward to seeing them tomorrow and drinking plenty of beer and wine. Or, to paraphrase from Metalocalypse, “fuckin’ love my family, my family’s fuckin’ awesome.”
Paris
Here’s my anti war story: My wife and I have run a soup kitchen for 11 years. Five years ago one of the volunteers started a Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving day. They have since left, leaving us with the extra responsibility. There is nothing like 50 strangers coming together on a day, people that wouldn’t have anyone to spend it with otherwise. We cooked most of today and received three ‘reservations’ tonight (none are required). After that tomorrow, we will go to my brother’s house where there will be 30 more people, that despite our differences, have the best times together. I have two adult children who go out of their way to spend time with the extended family. Because its fun.
Have a great weekend.
Lincolnshire Poacher
“Steve Martin/Chevy Chase comedy”
Trains, Planes, and Automobiles stars Martin and the long lost John Candy.
Unless you are thinking a Chevy Chase Vacation film per chance?
“I can handle anything … I’ve been with Del Griffith, shower curtain ring salesman.”
I am sure we’ll piece together something in my family usually at the last minute, then all the hatred and animosity goes away for a few hours of family time … to begin again for Black Friday.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Dennis SGMM:
Can’t we have at least one thread where we don’t talk about the Blue Dog Dems in the Senate?
/ducks and runs
freelancer
This cartoonist isn’t funny, btw.
Mojotron
from a blog in my neighborhood in DC:
+++++++++++
UPDATE
+++++++++++
jeffreyw
@The Bearded Blogger: The dark meat on a turkey is fine, and the white meat makes great sammiches later when combined with the leftover dressing and cranberry sauce.
That said, I much prefer pork to turkey. I bow to tradition and do one turkey per year. This year it will be turducken, ordered out of the Louisiana wild spaces. Looking forward to slicing it across the grain to ooh and ahh over the layers of Yum! within.
But you don’t like dressing? I fart in yer general direction!
abo gato
Oh, Jeffreyw, I heard about this method of making turducken this morning…..gonna make one for Christmas! Two turkey breasts, debone them, lay one flat, add layer of dressing, then add duck breasts, layer of dressing, layer of chicken thighs, more dressing, then the other turkey breast goes on top, seal it all up and cook.
How cool does that sound? Man, oh man, I wish I’d heard that before now or we’d be having that tomorrow. Instead I am smoking my turkey. It turns out great since I am using a Bradley smoker…..set it up and let it run.
Dennis SGMM
@Cris:
More than welcome. I was a constant stoner when I read it so my humor threshold was very low.
PurpleGirl
@jeffreyw: Shit. I was nearly done till I started this comment.
LOL. I think that sums up how many people feel. I had lunch with my friend today and brought home the apple crumb pie and the cranberry sauce. She picks up the turkey and every thing else tomorrow morning.
Phyllis
@Mojotron: Somewhat like the fellow who trashed a hotel room in upstate SC a couple of days ago because he claims he got a couple of phone calls telling him to ‘free the trapped 4’3″ man’.
jeffreyw
@abo gato:
Now that sounds cheap and easy! Not as easy as my method, but def cheaper!
gocart mozart
Shouldn’t that be “Steve Martin / John Candy movie” Anne, Re: “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” ?
Happy Thanksgiving Tom Delay ;)
Dennis SGMM
@abo gato:
Bet it’s hard to keep that sucker lit.
Hyuk, hyuk!
Jager
My “baby sister” and her husband are having a very cool, non family Thanksgiving this year. She met her husband in Madrid 2 weeks ago at a conference he was attending, they traveled around Spain for 10 days, flew to NY last night and are spending the weekend at the Plaza, I asked her where they were going to eat and her reply, “I’m sure we’ll find someplace nice”! She is really getting an attitude for somebody whose nickname was “Buck”!
We’re hosting my daughter and her kids…I plan to tell my two grandsons (7 and 11) all kinds of bullshit stories, the same stories I heard from my grandfathers!
demimondian
@The Bearded Blogger: Are you related to Tom DeLay?
Anne Laurie
@Cris:
__
After they graduated from Harvard Lampoon and before they started National Lampoon, a bunch of overeducated smartarses wrote a LOTR parody called Bored of the Rings.
Sometime this weekend, there will be a different bunch of overeducated smartarses (including a couple of actual rocket scientists) singing over the turducken, ham, and sushi:
“We boggies are a hairy folk, doo dah, doo dah,
We like to eat until we choke, all the doo-dah day…. “
gocart mozart
@Dennis SGMM:
Also,
I always wanted to try that but I could never find a pipe big enough. (rimshot)
jeffreyw
Mrs J’s Perfect Pumpkin Pie
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Jager:
My goodness but that sounds like a high speed courtship. The kids these days!
/geezer
Mnemosyne
Ah, the joys of apartment living: I went downstairs to do some laundry, only to discover that the dryer is broken. I really don’t want to go to the frickin’ laundromat. Gah.
Jager
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I’ll rephrase that, “after 25 years of marriage, she met her husband in Madrid” better? Hell man, I’m drinkin, Jack on the rocks, btw.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Jager:
Sorry! I knew what you meant, but I just couldn’t resist giving it a twist. The other version sounded too much like something from a Julia Roberts movie (14 Days Across the Sea..) to pass up on.
Brad Hanon
In my crowd, we do “Orphan Thanksgiving” on Friday for whoever isn’t stuck with family. We always cook something different: roast beef, pork tenderloin, goose, duck, basically anything but turkey. This year we’re doing what we call Novemberfest–a massive heart-stopping dose of German food. Sausages, mashed potatoes, pork roast, and an old family recipe my girlfriend makes, with a name that I can’t spell and Google denies the existence of, which is meat layered with cabbage and spices and good stuff.
Dunno what we’re doing Thursday. See who’s still delivering, I guess.
jinxtigr
Boggies! I think my kitties qualify.
Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble…
Gozer
This is first T-giving I’ve spent not doing something with one or both of my parents so the wife and I are going to spend the day watching netflix and humpin’.
Halteclere
My wife and I had made plans to travel with our son to see my parents for the whole of this Thanksgiving week. But our plans were joyfully interrupted when my dad received the call last Thursday that a new liver was waiting for him.
So, after spending several days with my parents in the hospital, making sure my Mom is taking care of my Dad, and my Dad is taking care of himself, I am back home planning to spend a relaxing Thanksgiving with only my wife and my son, and am very, very happy to do so.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@cleek: Yup.
Thanksgiving Day – The day we give thanks we’re old enough to avoid the nuts in the family tree.
Now all I need is a polite, fool-proof way to tell the loony neighbor we appreciate the invitation to his post-TD/Black Friday shindig, but we’d rather light cherry bombs and drop them down our Underoos(TM).
My 165 previous attempts did not work.
BruceFromOhio
@cleek:
Most memorable Thanksgiving was with my wife-to-be, marooned in college town because of work, alone because everyone else had gone back to homes far away. She cooked the turkey, I brought the big jug of wine, and we both fell asleep in her living room listening to Dire Straits.
Some 27 years later, we still take a moment amongst the din to toast each other with a simple hug, because we still manage to be good friends, just like when we started out together.
BruceFromOhio
@Halteclere:
Cheers! A speedy recovery and continued good fortune to all!
Much to be thankful for …
BruceFromOhio
@Hal:
Pisses off liberals + riles up haters = contributions!
Grifters gotta grift, and those tweets won’t write themselves, although sometimes it seems that way.
asiangrrlMN
@Halteclere: Good luck to your father!
@freelancer: Agreed. Though, I am the guy on the right. I gave up celebrating T-day several years ago (too stressful), and I am giving up Christmas this year as well (I have always hated it)
@jeffreyw: Man. I am getting full just looking at your pics! Nicely done.
So, even though I don’t celebrate it, I hope everyone has a peaceful and happy turkey day.
asiangrrlMN
@Jager: I have to admit, I read it the other way, too, the first time around. Then, it hit me, and I realized your sis did not marry the guy after knowing him for two weeks.
Libertini
@gbear: Another orphan here. I am so sorry for your loss. My Mom died just after Thanksgiving 2007 also. I was still grieving when Dad passed in January 09. They weren’t married to each other, so Dad didn’t die of a broken heart, just a worn out one. It was just a nasty twist of fate that they were both gone in such a short span of time.
I have extended family, whom I will happily spend time with. And I have multiple sets of friends who invite me over in case I ever tire of that tradition. I am so thankful that I had the kind of relationship with my parents that made me glad to spend holidays with them, drama be damned. I wish everyone could have a family like that. Even if it hurts so very much when they are gone.
I have to admit, the Tom Delay conviction lifts my spirits quite a bit, which is always a challenge this time of year!!
Derek
Yeah, I’ve never had a “bad” Thanksgiving. I like all my relatives, I love my mom’s cooking and a good time is had by all. I really don’t get this cliche, or common thought that Thanksgiving is this unholy hellscape of family strife. Maybe I’m just lucky.
Thanksgiving is awesome.
It is centered around gravy. Thus, it is the best holiday.
low-tech cyclist
“Prologue – Concerning Boggies,” Bored of the Rings
Glidwrith
We had our drama two days ago: dead microwave, dead router to the internet (the horror!) and Mr. Glidwrith’s father taking off part of his hand with a power saw. It wasn’t as bad as we initially heard, just lost part of a pinkie and a little bit of tendon damage in the next finger. We understand the angle was such that his whole hand could have been pulled in – lengthwise.
So, very grateful we only had minor household glitches and far less fearful damage to the kids’ grandpa. And just to be picky, it’s “tryptophan” not triptophan.
frosty
@low-tech cyclist: Thanks for that! I still have the copy of “Bored” I bought decades ago. Your quote brings back memories of Dildo and Frito Bugger fighting off the Ballhog while the Nosedrool circle overhead.