Skip to main content

Awkward Thanksgivings--I got that beat

 I keep seeing all these ads or memes about awkward Thanksgiving meals. These messages either try to give advice on how to navigate red state-blue state-woke-nonwoke differences at the table or use them for comedy. 

I submit I had a particularly awkward, or unusual Thanksgiving meal. 

I hosted my daughter-in-law's family, she and my son and granddaughter (10 months old), and my husband. That may not sound so bad, but my in-laws do not speak much English, at least the wife. So we had a lot of Spanish and a lot of translating, with one end of the table all English (except for my occasional input), the middle of the the table Spanglish, and the other end all Spanish. We had an age range of 72 years to 10 months (she liked my mash potatoes and I have an adorable photo of her propped on pillows at the table with some food in front of her, trying to figure this all out). The awkwardness continued with the fact that I do not live with my husband, he and our son have a tenuous relationship, and he has mental health issues which translates into you never know what might come out of his mouth. He also voted for Donald Trump but only to counteract the "evil of the Democrats." I am pretty sure the rest of the table, at least those who could, did not. 

Yet it went quite well. I had lots of food, and my counterpart brought a savory dish of braised chick and one of pork, and my son, a far better cook than I, brought his dishes: mac and cheese, brussel sprouts and bacon, and asparagus. My concerns about the cornbread dressing and the turkey were unfounded; everything was perfect, which meant my husband, had no reason to criticize. 

Of course, the nieta, the granddaughter, held court. Literally. She was the center of attention. The only grandchild on both sides, very cute, and with grandparents much older than the norm and three 30-something tios (one tia, two tios), she is loved and loved and loved.  And she knows it. Every sound (word?), every expression, every bye-bye wave or clap, every laugh gets oohed and ahed. Mexicans are less puritanical about their children; they don't worry that they are loved too much. I am glad she will not have to be wholly influenced by my northern European Reformed neurosis.

Of course, there were lots of photos; my son's in-laws love to take photos, and they were dressed up to go out in the backyard and takes lots of them. So I have a strong record of the special event when the whole family, ten of us, people who didn't know of each other's existence four and a half years ago, gathered for a bi-cultural, bilingual, and nonpolitical celebration of God's goodness.  

The awkwardness probably only existed in my mind as I hoped that it would be a blessed day, and it was. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

January 26, 2025: Joseph Campbell's view of things

  A colleague sent me this quote the other day. He said that it had really helped him through life and as he faced changes and retirement, and it also helped him follow his bliss and find what he really wanted to do.  “The problem in middle life, when the body has reached its climax of power and begins to decline, is to identify yourself, not with the body, which is falling away, but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle. This is something I learned from myths. What am I? Am I the bulb that carries the light? Or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle? One of the psychological problems in growing old is the fear of death. People resist the door of death. But this body is a vehicle of consciousness, and if you can identify with the consciousness, you can watch this body go like an old car. There goes the fender, there goes the tire, one thing after another— but it’s predictable. And then, gradually, the whole thing drops off, and consciousness rejoins consciousn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why to Read Fiction, Idea #27: Empathy, anyone?

The Idea #27 is tongue in cheek.  But these are some ideas about writing fiction, which I have done in ten novels (and counting), a dozen short stories, and two produced plays (I know, not exactly the same).  Background: In 2015 a colleague and I wrote an open educational resource public speaking textbook for a grant provided by our University System. We didn't realize at the time that it would go viral and be used all over the world within a few years. There are two reasons for that: it is good (as good as anything on the market) and it is free, although only in digital form. Check out www.exploringpublicspeaking.com for it. We also didn't know at the time that my co-author would die at 39 in 2016. I still miss him. Back to the point, I receive requests for the test banks every other day, and this morning I received one from Pennsylvania. The writer had a signature line: "Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Starting Over

We are ridiculously dependent on information technology.  I found that out two weeks ago when my MAC of ten years went inoperative. "Crashed." "Died."  Fortunately, some smart technicians were able to salvage my files; I should call them my life, my work, my creativity.  But I did lose my passwords. Specifically, I lost the password to my two blogs, which I have not posted to since the crash.   My first blog, partsofspeaking.blogspot.com had been in operation since 2006. It had almost 3000 posts on it.  Fortunately, I can still get to them. The whole world can. The fact that I can't get into edit or post it any longer means I also can't take it down. It is going to be there as long as Google Blogger will be. If anything there would get me in trouble, well, I'll have to live with that.  The second one, highereducationobserver.blogspot.com, is where I wrote about my professional expertise as a department chair. It reflected more research. In both blogs, ...
Post a Comment
Read more