Thanksgiving

If last year was an accurate blueprint, then for this year I can expect the following for Thanksgiving. I will be given the expectation that my wife's parents will arrive sometime in the early morning, so that I will wake up early and clean: sweep the floors, wipe down the bathroom, take out the trash, etc. After the house is spotless we'll wait around awkwardly for several hours because I was given a gross misestimation as to when they would arrive. As my vision becomes clouded and my strength fades from hunger, they will finally show up about four to six hours later than I anticipated.

My mother-in-law, Julie, will set up shop in the kitchen, baking and baking until my table is completely covered in tiny cakes and other finger-foods. My wife and her sisters will help her make little blueberry muffins, cookies, and an odd sushi-like snack made from ham rolled around cream-cheese and a pickle. My table will be completely covered in entirely too much food for us all to eat and my kitchen will be a disaster within hours.

My father-in-law, Steven, will set up a grill on his tailgate because he refuses to use the nice propane grill we got for Independence Day for some reason. Before he starts grilling steak outside, he'll microwave some chicken breasts because that's a thing people do apparently. I'll  have a bite because I'm too polite or too stupid to refuse it, but really, who trusts raw chicken breast cooked in a microwave? The already busy table will then be covered in entirely too many steaks for us all to eat, especially considering we're already full from the baked goods.

While everyone else is cooking, I'll be sitting at my computer in the vice-like grips of anxiety feeling like I should be helping, but also feeling like I'd just be in the way. All the noise and bickering going on around me will prevent me from enjoying whatever game I'm trying to play or task I'm trying to complete, so I'll probably just run in circles on-screen and try to pretend I'm somewhere else. Julie will have gotten tired and taken a seat on the couch just before Steven arrives and I'll put on an old holiday movie for her while Steven chides her for sitting around, despite having spent hours baking before he got there.

I don't mean to be a grinch, and I know that sounds like what the kids call, "a straight-up lie." I enjoy the holidays and I love spending time with my wife's family, but the hustle, bustle and tussle wears me down. When I was growing up, Thanksgiving was a calm, quiet day where my mom would cook everything, we'd eat dinner at three in the afternoon and then that would be it. Too much commotion and chaos betrays the purpose of the holidays.   

Once Steven and Julie leave, I'll wind up cleaning the entire house again with the added chore of packing all the leftovers into tupperware, but at least this time my wife and her sisters will be awake to help me. That weekend, Stephanie and I will drive down to Florida to see my mom. She'll probably spend a bunch of money on a large dinner for the three of us even though I ask her not to, or at least to let me pay for some of it but her pride won't let me. At least it will be much quieter and calmer than Thanksgiving at my house.

After Thanksgiving is over, I can look forward to adding Christmas flavor to the Halloween decorations we never took down. We like to celebrate a variant of Halloween and Christmas called Spookmas, which starts on Halloween and ends on Christmas. The holidays are functionally normal, but we have a bunch of skulls and pumpkins wearing Santa hats everywhere for three months.