Holiday Togetherness

Automatic Washer - The world's coolest Washing Machines, Dryers and Dishwashers

Help Support :

When the Pilgrems and Native Americans (Indians) planned the first Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful time. They spent time reflecting their hard first year, how they helped one another survive then shared their harvest with one another. Without a nationally televised football game, or parade they were content to visit with one another and then retreat to church where they prayed for up to 12 hours that they would make it through the upcoming winter.

Today's Thanksgiving celebrations are limited more to family than communities. I think this would be so much better if we were more community involved. Everyone from your church, Local AA group, or in my family's case; the mental health association, should get together and give thanks as a group. Too much family at celebrations can be like having sex with you sister. It happened, but ewww.

This would be so much better than having to live through another year of (you can fill in the blank for your family) family members showing up stoned, drunk, and of course late. Dropping off the kids and not coming back until the following Monday, or in one case New Years (three years later).

So this year as a family we are going to limit or visits to arraingments, scheduled court appearances and funerals. Since I hate football, and NASCAR season is over, I will watch the Parade (Which my Nephew's son's school has been invited to next year), then the Dog show, then a resturant. I know family won't be at the resturant, because they couldn't pass the background check to work there, and they wouldn't be eating there due to the fact that you don't order at the window by pointing to pictures. Besides, I hear this resturant doesn't use paper napkins and serves water in a glass without a lid on it.

I envy those big family get togethers on TV, where the huge loving families all get along, or at least pretend to, and celebrate. Trust me the disfunctional-midwesteren-mutts don't do it that way. If you dared ask for their favorite recepe, you would get a tutorial on how to cook Meth.

Well you can tell I am in the spirit. So this year I'm using you guys as my community. So rather than being a total drag like me, why don't we share our traditions and fun family times. Meanwhile, I will take my Lithium and try to pull my head out of my butt.
 
Ok Doing better

One of our fun Thanksgivings was when I worked at a video store. I got to bring home a Camcorder for the day. My Nephews had contests to see how many rolls they could stuff in their mouths, my brother in law took the new camcorder on his motorcycle. Nothing happened other than my heart attack.

We still have that video even though many of the stars are now gone. So when that pesky Aunt Bertha wants to take rolls and rolls of pictures. Let her.
 
I avoid all family gatherings whenever possible

My fundamentalist Christian brother and his brood of in-bred red-nex "Amerika über alles" proto-nazis is just more than I can cope with.

Leave the pleasure to my parents. My partner and I always have a private dinner with my parents during the holidays, just the four of us or sometimes one of my parents friends.

At our last get-together, the fourth of July, my partner asked my parents about the latest addition to the clan:
And was the child borne with no problems? he asked.

Well, yes, my mother replied, of course it was a C-Section, but the child has all its toes and fingers, a nose, two eyes and nearly two ears.

Didn't bat an eyelash or phrase it as if her statement was anything but everyday. The people at the table across from us looked at us as if we were mad, raving mad.

The last time I got suckered into doing Christmas with the whole clan, I made pecan pies and topped them with whipped cream. The younger generation rejected them - the kewlwhip must have spoiled, it doesn't taste right.

At that point, my dad grabbed my leg under the table and with his other hand gently made a "no you don't" sign with his finger.

Since then, we stick to the gay festivities with real foods, soft music, candlelight and pleasant conversation with my parents and leave the fist-fights, hair-pullings and cops to the other occasions. For St. Pat's day this year, we managed to get two of the brood behind bars...without their even leaving their own trailers.

Er,houses, so don't want to upset the PC crowd who, not having trailer-trash relations, have no idea (lucky them) just why it's called trailer-trash.

Thanksgiving and Christmas memories for me are the ones from my earliest childhood and the last three years with my partner.

Friends, we chose. Family we are stuck with. Once my parents are gone, I'll no be spending nay a minute more on them.
 
Gee

Glad our family isn't the only one.

Trailer Trash = PC term Mobile Home Community Rubbish

I guess some of the dislike recently with holidays is not so much being disgrunted with what I have, but it makes me remember what we have lost.

We used to go the my Aunt and Uncles. They had everyone there, everyone was happy. All the kids played, the grown ups acted like. . .grown ups. Now everyone is gone, of my Mother's 14 brothers and three sisters, Mom and one brother is all that's left.

As for immediate family, they were already mentioned above.
 
Favorite Holiday

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love dressing and turkey gravy with featherlight whipped potatoes, pies that out number the guests, bowls full of whipped cream and it is a day long marathon of eating and playing games. Loaded Questions has become the family favorite along with Catch Phrase and Pinochle. Since mom moved to Banana Land we go to my aunt's house and this year numbered 26. I have a fundamentalist minister brother who withdrew his church from the Baptist convention for being too liberal. My partner and I, my thrice divorced brother and wordly sister form a strong enough alliance to make the fundies uncomfortable. Now my minister brother hides behind a camera and his wife retreats to the furtherest corner. I love to find her and sit right close, chit chatting like a little school girl. This year they stayed home.
 
After Christmas 2007 when we all got together at my crazy OCD sisters house we decided that it just wasn't worth it to travel to Lake Forest every year and put up with their antics. If anyone remembers my post that from long ago. We were horrified at the way she does things up there.

And my brother, who is a member of a religious cult (if you are not a member of his church, you're going to hell) is always good for major drama. He's one of those "Stop the world, I have a problem types.

I firmly believe that some families just should NOT get together. It's unhealthy for all involved!
 
i heartmaytag

sounds like you know MY family well. Not many left now but in the days, after all the beer was gone and all the kids had wrecked the house and most of the neighborhood. If the police had not been called yet, or someone had not been sent to the hospital in a straight jacket, then aunt Bell would play the piano although she could not read any music and only knew how to play Crying in the Chapel. Jingle Bells was like none other, And after 2 or three glasses of wine would get up on the table and show us all how to do the Charleston. One year she knocked out 2 floor lamps and and end table .
 
Fundamentalist Christian Family Values Shine Through for Tha

I do believe the All-American-Republican-Fundamentalist-Christian-TeH GAYz©-Are-Out-To-Destroy-Amerika wing of the family outdid themselves this year. And this, although they were down on team members:

*Our cop-nutting poster child for why-incest-is-a-bad-idea was out of town with ex #1. (In case you missed my 4th of July thread, the poor sheriff's deputy made the mistake of not wearing a cup while trying to get her down from the school-yard tree where she'd ensconced herself the last day of school. Stranger-Danger training to the rescue.)

*Ex#2 and father of at least one of the brood is still a guest of the fed's, for robbing banks, badly and keeping quiet about it, worse...

and

*live-in boyfriend number, well, never-mind, is still in jail on work-release violation #4 of the year...

By the end of what was to have been Thanksgiving dinner, we had:

One trailer trashed.

Another live-in boyfriend in jail. Again.

A law-suit served at dinner for beating up an under-age kid in a fight-club (the bettero-sexuals really do that sort of thing in Fort Collins. Fight-clubs, I mean, not dinner).

The process-server got chased out with a base-ball bat which means another visit from the sheriff, but hey, now that Balloon-Boy is down for the winter, he's got nothing better to do.

Most of dinner ended up on the walls, 'cause one of my charming nieces had a fight with the in-laws. Or whatever you call the parents of the live-in boyfriends. They swear they're never leaving LA to visit again. Of course, they said that three years ago after our rousing St. Pat's day shoot-out, see ex.#2, above).

My parents, the only non-fundamentalist-Christian, non-Republican members of the family, have announced they are spending Christmas with TEH GAYZ© in the family this time.

As my father put it, the worst thing that happens around us is when an eyebrow gets raised because someone pulls their soup spoon towards them instead of away...
 
Thanksgiving this year followed by mother's birthday dinner on Saturday would have meant visiting out-of-state on Wed., Thurs. Fri. Sat. and Sun.

I said, no, thank you, but I'll be there on Saturday. My sister AGREED with me, *LOL*.

Visiting relatives are like fish; after being around for three days they really start to stink.

I hear the straight bars are filled to capacity on Wednesday night the day before Thanksgiving. In my area, the gay bars are jammed on Friday night. We've all had to endure (blood/genetic/adoptive) family, you see, the day before.

I do kind of miss the holdiays of olden days when there were two languges flowing, ethnic music playing and the grandparents were alive. *SIGH*
 
I always had more fun

And was "taken home"more at the straight bars anyway.. The best were always hotel bars.. In this area the Gay Bars are always full of people trying to be someone else. (or wishing they were)
 
oh my paws ands whiskers, Mac, yes

back in the late seventies, early eighties a historic hotel in Fort Collins had one night a month for us in their bar, the rest of the month was absolutely not for us.

First time, a couple of guys were beat up pretty bad on their way out of the bar.
One month later, several UofWyo football players who'd come down extra for the fun of trashing gays didn't play in Laramie's games the rest of that season - every gay in the city had got on the horn to every gay rancher and every biker dyke down to Pueblo, up to Sheridan and over to SLC.

They were waiting for the bashers.

From the third month on to the end, it was a pleasant, dignified, wonderful evening where guys could slow dance with other guys, women could discuss the best way to replace clutch cables on Suzuki GS1100s (notorious problem at that time for the "in" bike of the crowd) and the hotel bar made money like mad.

Those guys and gals were real people. I doubt 90% of them would have felt comfortable or even been wanted in a typical gay bar today...even when I was single, I avoided them like the plague.

From what I got to see in Denver a few months ago, nothing has changed.
When I was in college, and wanted to pick up guys, the type of real men I liked (and like) didn't hang out in gay bars. Still don't. Queenly cliques are to being gay like learning how to change diapers with one hand are to being straight...doesn't mean you have to volunteer for it.
Besides, your chances are much, much better...
 
Well we survived.
Only family I saw was my brother, but that was after TGD. My brother is in the hospital, they think it's a kidney stone. We should hear more today.

We went to a resturant, best $32 I have ever spent. Still brought home leftovers and no family to deal with, no cooking and no clean up.

I got the yard totally cleaned up, worked at the Nights of Columbus Christmas Tree lot and got to watch the neighbors get busted for counterfitting.

Glad to be back to work today.
 
Not much has changed here over the years either.

Now the Spanish bars are the most fun.. anything goes with them.. Have even had wives "watch" to make sure hubby goes with a man and not a girl. That way he is not cheating on her. God Bless em..
 
I've read all your posts with great interest! Thanks to you all, I am going to send up prayers of thanks for my boring, charming, wonderful family!! Apparently, our level of dysfunction is set on simmer. LOL Best wishes to everyone for a drama-free Christmas holiday.
 
westingman123

You are a very, very lucky man.

When I was a kid, we had family dinners at which some relations only spoke Italian, others only German, others English (more or less, Aunt Catherine from Glasgow may have been speaking English, then again...) the Irish faction arrived with rosy cheeks and the Scotish Calvinists who wouldn't let us kids play outside on Sundays...my dad's brother's boyfriend sitting on my uncle's knees...kids all over the place, dogs, cats...

Catholics/protestants, Republicans and Democrats, folks from Dixie who had grown up in Jim Crow towns and the black maid and gardener and their families.

We all managed to be happy together for the holiday.

Beats me what happened to my family, but it sure sounds like this is a general experience. I wasn't raised this way, and it sure as hell has nothing to do with money or social class.

With a lack of class, yes. But why? Why can't we just be civil through one day, a few times a year?
 
Keven:

"Why can't we just be civil through one day, a few times a year?"

It's an outcome of the cultural shift that began in the '60s. There used to be an ethic of common good, where one put aside one's own feelings and preferences to help a group reach a desired goal. Today, it's all about "Me." Each and every one of us considers himself entitled to full expression of every last quirk and foible, under any and all circumstances. That may, as selfsy-helpsy gurus suggest, be healthy for the individual, but it is absolute pure living hell on institutions such as family and social gatherings. People show up for an event dressed as they please, as late as they please, prepared to talk only about what they please and ready to conduct themselves in whatever way they please. We've all seen how this works at Thanksgiving, where peace and harmony are not achievable due to everyone pulling in different directions, but it's everywhere - even Buckingham Palace has trouble getting people to show up on time, properly dressed and behaving in a fashion suitable for a meeting for the Queen. I don't think it's too much to ask that people behave themselves decently well for a few hours a year, or on important occasions, but some of the people I know - and some I'm related to - definitely see it differently.

It stinketh.
 
I had family memebers that could not be civil

for more than 5 mins. if it was going to kill them.. and I really think that is just what happened to most of them. Also the cats had better manners than they did. Look more like something from Hee Haw.. even had a aunt that looked just like LULU but everyone call her moo moo she was bigger than a cow.Did not bother her a bit. If fact she liked being called old cow.
 
By The Way:

A really, really mind-boggling example of how far the "Me" generation is willing to go happened only last week at the White House, when two reality-show wannabes crashed a state dinner. It should be inconceivable for anyone to put their show-biz aspirations before the safety and security of the President of the United States, but noooooooooooo.
 

Similar threads

Ultramatic
Right to Repair
Replies
6
Views
7
vacerator
V
S
A BIG THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR THEIR SUPPORT AND COMMENTS!!!
Replies
9
Views
10
whirlaway
W

Latest posts

Back
Top