I'm Pretty Sure I'm Adopted, And Other Lies I Tell Myself to Make It Through the Holidays
You know the Thanksgiving ideal I’m talking about here. The Dream of the family with one mother, one dad (both still happily married to each other, mind), with the healthy, happy brood of kids gathered around the table a la The Waltons. We might not have much money, but we’re well-fed with Granny’s secret cornbread dressing, and everyone loves each other. No one fights. No one snipes. No one secretly hopes someone’s certain brother-in-law will choke on a yam. It’s the one day a year we have the Perfect Family Meal. The problem with the “Perfect Family Meal” is that nobody has the perfect family. It’s an oxymoron. The Waltons was a tv show and didn’t really exist. (FYI, this just in, Leave It To Beaver, also not based in reality. Just in case you didn’t get the memo.)
Personally I blame Norman Rockwell.
I know, his pictures are iconic, aren’t they? I love them. Every one of them is a story, harkening back to a time where things were a little simpler, a little sweeter, a little happier. Which unfortunately has never truly existed. I admit I want the Norman Rockwell ideal. Every year I faithfully peruse the holiday magazines and photocopy recipes, fantasize about making homemade rolls so light they float off the plate, and being crowned “Turkey Queen”. I have my little Martha Stewart dream, I admit it freely.
But let’s share what really happens on Thanksgiving at my house.
I will cook almost everything. My sister is assigned the desserts. I like making the turkey and sides. I won’t make anything new because after almost twenty years of doing most of the cooking at Thanksgiving, I know better. New dishes, no matter how tasty and wonderful, are lost on the plebian tastes of my family.
“What is this?”
“It’s cornbread stuffing with cranberries and walnuts.”
“It tastes funny. Where’s the real stuffing? The kind from the box I bought.”
I fought it for years, but I’ve given up. It’s not worth it. And if they like it, they won’t tell me. So I can make something “weird” and get complaints; or I can cook the same old thing and get no comments. Guess which route I’ll be taking? I mean, every year I have to listen to three hours worth of my father going off about how many pans it takes to cook everything. I want the complaining kept to a minimum. The day is going to suck enough as it is. Just wait.
Okay, once all the stuff is fixed, my sister and her brood come to the farm to eat with us. This is after I’ve gotten about six phone calls that morning. What am I fixing? When will it be done? Is it done yet? Do I have any mushroom soup? Are we watching the football game, John wants to know? And in case, I missed it the other two times: is it done so they can come down already?
Okay. So we’re ready—6 hours of prepping just for this moment.
They arrive; they eat; they stay exactly forty minutes (this includes taking off coats and eating time, by the way); and then they leave. They leave because my sister has fixed her own turkey and the same number of side dishes for their “real Thanksgiving meal” at home. That’s right. She only eats with us because Dad expects it—and he too wants the Norman Rockwell family dinner.
My sister usually raves about one of my dishes before she goes; she is the only person I get compliments from. I hide in my room the rest of the day. I pray the Clueless Wonders will not visit. I usually pray in vain.
The Clueless Wonders (John’s middle younger son and his wife) are a married couple, who have unfortunately bred. (Though the child is charming…and far more intelligent than they are.) I call them the Clueless Wonders because calling them the Fucking Idiots is banned from the dining room table for some reason. They married some years ago, after he knocked up the poor girl he was dating. After she was pregnant, it was decided to let them marry. (BTW, like father, like son. Oh, yeah, the CW has no original ideas or thoughts.) She’s about 10 years my junior and she frequently tells me I might make a good mom someday. You know, when I grow up. She does not work; and he is frequently without a job because (and I quote): “My boss doesn’t understand me.”
Basically these guys sit in our living room, spouting off, and I marvel at my tax dollars at work for their upkeep.
If I’m really lucky, my brother Eldon’s ex-step-daughter (keeping up yet?) will come with her brood (how many kids does she have? Six? Eight?) and visit. Brandy tells colorful stories of our childhood, much like a jock from high school relives his famous days on the field. I marvel at her many piercings and tattoos and run-ins with the law. After about twenty minutes in the brood’s rambunctious company, I usually go check to make sure I took my birth control pill that morning. I mean, I take them as soon as the alarm goes off, like I’m some sort of Pavlov’s dog or something, but you can never be too careful.
I look at that picture of Norman Rockwell’s Thanksgiving dinner and laugh. It is not a bit reflective of my family, or any family I know. One of my best friends does the family thing, and even when everyone is seated around the table, no one reminds you of those kids from the Waltons. Not a tattoo or piercing among the Walton crowd. And other friends never have anything as normal as a family dinner. No. They go to the ER…or have a family carted off to jail or a mental ward. You mention the word “Thanksgiving” to them and they visibly wince. “Please, do we have to do the Thanksgiving thing? Can’t we just sit at home and eat a turkey sandwich, please?”
And it’s not only artwork: reading about these Walton-like families in novels totally annoys me because I feel it's such complete fiction. Like a medieval story that has a heroine with a unicorn as a pet or something. These fictional hero/ines are weird…and blessedly unburdened by family members who have been featured on Cops or The Jeff Foxworthy Show. I doubt they truly appreciate how weird and special they really are! They’re the Endangered Species of Family Ideals and don’t even know it.
But at the same time, why are those families, that iconic .0005% of the population family dynamic the only one that’s praised, revered, put into fiction and art? What about the families with only one parent, or mixed families? Where are the non-traditional family pictures?
I want a Norman Rockwell painting with the pierced Goth teenager and the happily adjusted, gay young professional sitting next to his boyfriend. I want dad and his new young trophy wife smiling proudly in the background; and I want granny, a young 80, dressed in spandex and making goo-goo eyes at her new boyfriend, Ed. I mean, wouldn’t that be slightly more representative? Where’s the alcoholic uncle? There is always one of those at these dinners.
I think that’s what I loved most about Eloisa James’ first Duchess book. Here was a heroine who was ashamed of her family, her father specifically. She was a person who would have ducked out of Thanksgiving if it had been an option. And she’s horrible around children. I remember the critics going off about her, since romance novel heroines are supposed to be like Disney heroines, beloved by forest animals and children at all times. But finally I read about a heroine where I was like, “Damn, someone got it right.” Okay, not everyone feels about the same about children as I do (the self-absorbed, ‘bored’ little terrorists), but it was nice to sit around a table of people who were not Norman Rockwell perfect. They were a family of people I could relate and understand.
In my own writing, I tend to steer away from family members. Everyone is an orphan or sprung from a cabbage. I don’t know if it’s that I just don’t like family members or I know if I start adding them, they’re going to be so obnoxious that I won’t be able to publish my novel because it will cease being a fictional piece and more autobiographical. (By the way, my faculty and co-workers live for my Thanksgiving stories and think I should publish my family memoirs. They think I’d make a killing.) I do focus more on friendships between my heroine and her girlfriends. My friendships are my family in my real life, much more than my blood family, and I think that’s why they make it into my writing so often. (And they’re certainly not without their drama. They’re just not Clueless Wonders.)
So what’s your family like? Norman Rockwell or Ozzie Osborne? What sorts of families do you like to read about in fiction? Do you like writing family life in your novels, or do you write more about the friendships of your heroes/heroines? What are you looking forward most to Thanksgiving?
Books by the Crew
49 comments:
Ah, the joys of the holidays. This is why I love those quirky movies...you know, the 'real' holiday dinners. With the crazy dynamics, comedy, arrests...
I must admit, my folks did the whole Normon Rockwell thing. And it often was just as the picture shows. We are a very unusual family... We get along. But I know we're odd...
Now? Just me hubby and I and a steaming crockpot. I love reading about the 'real' families. I remember a movie with Robert Downey, Jr... Another with Diane Keaton... (I am bad with movie names.) But give me a dinner with the Plum family.
I always sensed more going on for most families... And am so glad it's not that way with mine. Dad is gone now, and we wait to get together over Christmass. Sis is taking up Panda Express for her and Mom over Thanksgiving. Yes!
Give me the Addams Family, much more interesting.
I haven't actually tackled much in the way of holidays with my characters... But it's an interesting exercise to contemplate... Turdunken on the ship?
You know, I grew up with all those family shows. I was 'Kitten' and 'Princess,' an only child. At the time I wanted siblings; now, I know better. But my own four get along great and we do actually have fun at holiday dinners. The Thanksgiving tradition in the Robinson household was whichever child was sixteen got incredibly tipsy on champagne and then was conned into washing all the dishes. Then they would lie down on a couch and we would laugh at them. Now everyone gets tipsy and though I cook, I don't clean up, because my daughters do it together. Don't get me wrong, they can quote chapter and verse of 'Holidays Gone Wild/Bad'---like the year their father brought the chainsaw into the house because he couldn't get the Xmas tree to fit in the holder and reminded everyone of Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining.' Heeere's Johnny.Or the year the middle daughter sucked up a straight pin and soda from the kitchen counter with a straw and spent Thanksgiving afternoon getting X-rayed. Or the year my mother-in-law had diarrhea (sp?) in my bed. Thanksgiving is really the only holiday meal I do anymore---others have taken over Christmas and Easter and for that I say'Amen.'
Champagne is the key. Trust me.Norman Rockwell must have slugged it down when he was painting.
Great blog Cap'n! I skip families while writing too - we all have 'em, no need to remind anyone *g*
My own family is nutso. I avoid holidays like the plague. Thankfully for me, I live 1200 miles away from them, so I have the perfect excuse. I try to duck down there to visit everyone somewhere in between Thanksgiving and Christmas - that way I can say I was there for the holidays, without being there for any actual holiday event. Really brilliant - it's taken me years to perfect this plan.
Then we do the actual holiday thing with my hubby's family, who goes back and forth between the Norman Rockwell painting, and all the kids spending Christmas night in jail (literally). I've finally figured out it's his sister - if she shows, I brace myself for chaos and drug busts. If she doesn't, we have a normal (albeit less entertaining) Norman Rockewell meal.
Oh, my family is a lot different since my father passed away. My mom and sister have escaped the Northeast and headed to Florida. So, Iget them around the holidays but it's always a fiasco trying to figure out when.
I cook at Thanksgiving for my in-laws. Most of the time it works out well and is fun. Not Norman Rockwell, but not Ozzie either. Sort of like the family in House of Payne I'd imagine.
I'm not bitter. Don't look at me like that. *slunking off with my keg of rum*
I hate perfect families. Period.
*grabbing another keg of rum*
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I believe I should've been born on Thanksgiving. Although, then it would be ruined by the perpetual aging divide. But I'd have birthday cake.
There are lots of options to be weighed with this wish of mine.
I can remember when my grandpa was still alive and making Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. The way the house would smell. The way the fire burned in the wood stove. The adults talking and laughing. My grandpa would be in the kitchen drinking beer and making dinner. Football would blare from the TV. That first Thanksgiving without my grandma was awful, but nothing compared to the first Thanksgiving. I don't even remember it. I think we went to Shoneys. It was like in the Christmas Story except for the singing Asian people.
I hate perfect families in fiction. Makes me want to poke my eye out with a rusty screwdriver.
I live for any story you tell about your family. And as many times as you've explained it all to me, I still get confused.
My family is NOT the NR portrait. We are way too quarrelsome (sp?). My sister is only happy when she's made everyone else miserable so she inevitably gets mad about something totally stupid then brings everyone else down. My dad is Mr. Crankypants so if she doesn't ruin it first, he'll get mad about something. Is it any wonder I live 500 miles away and almost never go home?
The family I've had in my adult life has always been my friends and that's how I write my stories. My heroine's mother plays a part but a very small one. However, the dynamics of my heroine's childhood greatly shape her and therefore shape my story.
Sin, I like the "Shoney's without the Asian people singing" remark.
Nope, pretty normal Thanksgiving. We always did the Turkey Bowl thing. This way one of my brothers can actually tackle (in a really hard way the idiot in-law that makes my sister's life hell) and it's all fair. Even the nephews and nieces are cheering for that one hit. I know, what violent group.
There's never been a large enough table to hold the immediate family for any dinner so we Samoan style on the floor and just talk story.
This holiday it feels different. Empty. Even having Thanksgiving far from home you never hear the end of how they had more food on the island to eat than we did.
Fran, hats off to you for doing ALL the cooking!
IG - I'd love to be at one of your family gatherings. It would be a nice change to be with people who (mostly) like each other. LOL!
My dad found his birth father when I was about 20. The first time we all met was for this giant T-day dinner. We had to rent a hall and there were 52 of us in attendance. All immediate family. And I believe a few couldn't make it. 8)
Pass some rum my way, Sin. I need to drown some memories...
Don't you guys love it when I pick cheerful topics to blog about?
Don't worry. Tomorrow's blog is better. It's all about what we're thankful for, which I should remember when I'm remembering my crazy, one-step-from-jail family. And honestly the family members who drive me the most crazy are people my sister married or brought into the family by default. They're not blood relations. And my brother's ex-step-kid is also not blood related...so that's good. It's just too bad they remember where we live.
Maggie: *LOL* I love your stories! Ah, to grow up in the Robinson household and be able to drink champagne, even if you were conned into doing the dishes...that's awesome. And I'm so cracking up about the chainsaw bit. *LOL*
2nd Chance: you know, perversely, I've wanted to try to make a Turducken just to say I did it. It looks cool on the Food Network! And I'd love some Chinese takeout on Thanksgiving instead. Yummo!
Hal: that is the most genius plan I've ever heard! An extra dose of rum for you! *pours heavily* And an extra dose for having a similar family situation. *LOL* It is the holidays, after all.
I can't decide if I'm weird or just delusional, but I love our family holiday dinners. Ours won't be a Norman Rockwell scene, but it sure won't be Ozzie's family either. Our gathering will include my sister and her ex, my brother and his ex, and one nephew and his ex. But the exes are there by invitation because they are still part of the family, and everybody gets along. Only one tattoo among us and the only piercings are ears. Of course, we don't have any teens either. :)
The scene will be wild. Since we can't seat sixteen people in our smaller dining room, we'll serve buffet style. People will literally be all over the house. Kids will be running everywhere. At least one will fall and have to be kissed and comforted to stop the tears. Football games will be watched with lots of armchair quarterbacking, video games will be played with enthusiasm, plans will be finalized for Christmas, and stories will be retold about past gatherings. I take comfort in the traditional foods; some of the recipes my sister and I will use were used by my mother and her mother and her mother. I like the feeling that the stories and recipes will connect us to our pasts. I like my family, and I like that our only fights will be about whose turn it is to hold the newest grand.
The families in TLWH are like mine in many ways. They are broken in places, they have their share of flaws and foibles, but for the most part they find more to like than regret in one another. For the most part, they feel blessed.
Marnee: Things are different in our house since mom died. Mainly we cuss a lot more. Mom would have beaten all of us senseless if she'd caught us cussing. You'd think we were all sailors in our house. Rather than one ex-Navy (who never used to cuss) and a pirate (who always cussed) and I'm not sure what my brother is... *LOL* But I assure you, it's weird to go through the living room and hear my Deacon father say, "Shit!" and he didn't even stub his toe or anything.
Terri: don't worry, I get confused too. Frequently I have to ask, "I'm sorry, why am I supposed to care you exist again?"--which usually prompts a fight.
Sin: You can come drink with me. And I'll bring some mashed potatoes.
American thanksgiving celebrations sound great fun. Families don't really get together like that in the UK, except at Christmas.
Hellion, may I say that your cooking sounds divine; those wonderful dishes would never be wasted on me! After a year of my own dubious cuisine, I find myself suddenly feeling hungry.
As to family unity I can just about cope once a year. My grandmother once told me that there is an 'academic gene' in the family that seems to pop up every second generation. It popped with me but misfired with my brother and sister. Happily it also popped with my son.
So as I settle in an arm chair with my favourite book and a large scotch, about to listen to Kiri te Kanawa as soothing background, my brother is likely to appear dressed in checkered trousers and twanging his guitar as he practises for his next gig..or something.
Somehow 'brotherly love' got lost somewhere in the aether!
Enough of my ramblings.
Can just imagine us all gathered around a log fire spinning yarns and munching Hellion's delicious mince pies...a little trans-Atlantic bonhomie would be very good and I'm sure that the British economy could provide suitable lubrication *g*
Cheers! Happy Thanksgiving pirates!
I would LOVE to go to an IG's shindig! It sounds like crazy, chaotic fun--much like IG was when I met her--but times by about 17 people and their families. *LOL, bouncing* When can we go, IG? I want someone to teach me how to surf!
Janga: Everyone in your family is bringing an ex--or at least three of them are, and they get along? Really? I mean, I don't even get along with my ex-boyfriend, and all the carb comforts of Thanksgiving sedating me wouldn't make me willingly invite him to a family shindig. But my merciful and forgiving nature is just one of those things I need to work on, I think. *LOL*
I would love to fight over who gets to hold the grandbaby. My niece Manda might come--and her guy who is a good guy--and their baby, Mahala, who we all fight to coo and hug and entice with toys and distractions. She doesn't always get to come at Thanksgiving, but I'd love it if she did. I'd load her up on rolls and mashed potatoes....
Speaking of food: What is everyone making? Any special recipes you can't live without at the holidays? Do you make it or someone else?
Quantam: I haven't got to try my hand at making a mince pie yet, but there are some things I have wanted to try my hand at. I really want to try making a treacle tart one year (this too would be lost on my family; I'll have to try it on a group of Harry Potter fans who'd understand). I do make a great gooseberry pie, though. And I've always wanted to make a steak and kidney pie--you know--because it seems so British. Plus it's steak--how can you go wrong?
You've been fending for youself this year? What's your favorite thing to make?
I just realized when my siblings and I are all in one room, there is a total of possibly 5 tattoos. LOL! And my brother had his bottom lip pierced on both sides last Xmas but I don't know if it's still that way. The funny thing is, my oldest sister is the only one without a tattoo. If I ever managed to get her drunk enough, she will have a tigger on that derrier of hers. :)
My ex's family actually gets along and loves to gather. But they do it nearly daily as they all live on the same farm. The funny thing is that now the sisters are married to a father/son combo. And the younger sister (married to the son) is pregnant. I'm still wondering if the baby will call my ex-SIL (married to the father) "aunt" or "grandma". LOL!
Dude, you could draw diagrams and I *still* wouldn't understand that family dynamic. Okay, maybe I do...but brain really hurts from the effort. Holy crap.
I don't cook. Thank god. No one wants to go to the ER on Thanksgiving.
I rely on everyone to feed me and most of the time I look pathetic enough that someone will take mercy on me.
We always have traditional Thanksgiving food in my family. Complete with two different types of dressing, so many pies that you could have a different type of pie clear up to Christmas and turkey, mashed potatoes, noodles, beer roll *wiping drool away* green bean casserole, mac and cheese, corn, deviled eggs (a staple fav in the family) and the green shit. Years ago my aunt tried this new recipe on the family, it has forever been deemed- the green shit- because no one can remember it's name. My aunt was very proud of her new recipe and my grandpa said, "looks like green shit."
I don't know what to call it. It's crushed pinapple, whipped cream, pistachios and marshmellows. Very yummy. I eat a whole bowl of it myself. Not to mention like a dozen rolls with mashed potatoes slathered on them with melted butter and turkey.
I'm a heartattack waiting to happen. Good thing the nurses already think I'm dead.
Mattycakes family has a very formal affair. Mattycakes actually wears nice clothes for these sorts of things. Very civilized if you minus out the grace from Talladaga Nights last year and his dad snorting out the cornbread he'd already stuck in his mouth and Mattycakes' mother's face turned redder than her glass of wine.
I get it. Mama has a BFF whose family is like that. The mother and daughter married brothers, and the daughter was my age and her mother had a baby with her brother-in-law/step-father so therefore the baby was her nephew/half-brother.
She's since divorced the brother, the daughter that is. The mother is still married and quite happy.
I'm tempted to make rolls this year. Which goes against my Thanksgiving Tantrum of 2002, I believe, in which I said, "I will NEVER make homemade rolls again so you guys can spin on it!" and stomped off to my room and didn't talk to any of them until Saturday. But *I* would like some rolls; so whether those ungrateful goons compliment them or not is not my problem.
If you sweet talk my mama she might let you have some rolls. And you know she's reading the comments, so you better be nice. LOL
Chance- I agree. I'd love to have dinner once with the Plums. Can you imagine if gramma pulled out the .45 and shot the shit out of the turkey? I think even my mama would go into the kitchen and pull out the old bourbon bottle out from under the sink and start drinking. LOL
Your mother loves me. I'm like the daughter she never had. *grins wickedly* Though I'm much too old to be her daughter...you're too old to be her daughter...
I have a hair appointment today. That should be enough to tell you how freaked out I am about Thanksgiving.
When you ask about my family Thanksgiving, I have to ask, my side or hubs? You see my side is as close to Norman Rockwell as you can get, well at least they think they are. Take out my aunt who is a high priestess, or something like that. Take out my mom and the other sisters who are constantly snickering at my 50+ aunt spouting off Wiccan blessings. Take out the grandfather who everyone despises yet tolerates just because he's their father, and you've got normal. Well minus the uncle who suffers from the Gulf War Syndrome. Hey, I actually look forward to that Thanksgiving.
Now, on hubs side, let us see...well they all think my kids and I are the equivalent to white trash. Dare I say, my kids know who their father is, not to mention they all have the same dad? Dare I say...I won't go there. I hate Thanksgiving. Hell I hate the holidays. Too stressful. We're never asked to come, we're told. At least on hubs side.
Can any of you say your brother and his wife(now ex) were on Judge Judy?
Oh here's a funny. My cousin, all the women folk, and my uncle the preacher, were in the dinning room and kitchen, except her mother, the Wiccan. Anyhow, she all of the sudden asks why she happens to be the only one not blessed with large breasts. And my mother, in her speak it as it is way says, "Well your mother bought hers." My cousins jaw drops to the floor, in thirty plus years she had never known this. She apparently was the only one who didn't know.
Renee, who cries through the holidays.
*HUGS Renee* Here, darlin', have some more rum. It's okay. How dare they treat you and your babies that way! Bunch of judgmental little witches. The only reason why anyone judges someone that way is because they fear that judgment of themselves. (And yes, I do live in fear of being deemed a Clueless Wonder--and considering I'm getting more and more senile, it's quite a possiblity! Sin says it's because I need more sex--I mean, don't we all?)
And I'd love to meet your aunt; I bet she's awesome.)
I did say that last night, didn't I?
Hm. The things that get said at the gym... *laughing*
Oh Renee! You don't live that far away! Come hide at my house. I'll gladly board you through the holidays. They are truly- read into this pretty much- stress free.
I think it was your OTHER comment where if Mattycakes had overheard it, we'd never have heard the end of it.
*thinking*
*twirling fake Sherlock Holmes mustache*
I say so much stuff that's shocking I can't remember. I know it wasn't about a dildo. I refrain from having those convos on the weight floor. Most of the time.
*thinking*
Awww thanks guys. Yes my aunt is cool in a weird sort of way. I think I'm considered the black sheep just because I understand her a bit more than everyone else. But hey, as odd as it is, she's only embracing our ancestry.
Thanks for the rum. Reminds me I better stock up tomorrow before the liquor store closes. Good thing hubs will be driving.
Renee
*still thinking*
I didn't even say that I would screw Robert Pattinson six ways from Sunday either. I'd put a new meaning in his life. It's too bad that would consider me for "cougar" status.
I know that for a fact because I actually ran on the treadmill last night and didn't get sidetracked.
How much have you all had to drink? Dildos? Robert Pattinson? Treadmills? Sounds fun!
Renee
Renee, we should switch Thanksgiving Bowl over to your house. You just point to anyone you want clotheslined and my brothers will do it.
Go get your hair done and practice talking under your breath. Hopefully you're whispering curses.
We usually have the American traditional food and the Samoan food combined. Ummmm.....Polynesians are famous for eating til they got tired not full.
Mom always made minced meat pie. No one ate it but Dad; which is the only reason why she made it in the first place. Although her pineapple half-moon pies were to die for. Damnit! I miss it all.
I wasn't hungry but now I am. We're having dinner at the church Thursday so I volunteered to bring two pies. Just bought the biggest dang apple and pumpkin (gourmet!) pies I've ever seen at the wholesale store. LOL! These things are huge!
I'm looking forward to this because a) I'm doing NO cooking, b) the food sounds like it will be wonderful and plentiful and c) I get to leave right after and spend a quiet afternoon cuddled up watching football. Yay me. LOL!
And that mother/daughter married to brothers thing might top the sisters married to father/son. But isn't it fun to tell people about and watch their eyes roll back in their heads? LOL!
Let's ditch the families and meet on the ship...do a turdunken, mashed potatoes, rum and lots of pie.
It sounds fabulous, really, everyone has a story and isn't that what it's really all about?
Though I'm not sure where dildos came into it...
Families are bizarre. Hubby's mom hosted a reunion...bunch of relatives arrived, ate, posed for pics, left. Total time? 3 hours, tops. My mom hosts a family reunion...relatives arrive for hours, eat for hours, talk for hours...pics, yes. Total time...8 hours or more.
I'm usually the big observer...keeping to the edge of things. I am making small pineapple upside down cakes, one for me and the hubby, for desert on Thursday... And maybe we'll go see a movie...
I've heard that Turducken is awesome. Anyone have any real life experience?
I'll take you up on that IG, besides Samoan food sounds delicious. Is there wheat,rye, or barely in any of it?
Renee
Awh, Renee.... You make me sad for you when you talk about diet restrictions. I feel your pain.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I just got home from Bolt! Awesome! I sobbed, I laughed, I want a dog!!!!!!
Thanks Marnee! My mother is going out of her way to make me a gluten free peanut butter pie!
2nd, I have three, two of them are Great Danes, the other a lab/mastiff mix. My mother has 4 Yorkies, they are wonderful. My dd has a pound puppy, he's the best. Get a dog! I love them. Now I'm going to have to see Bolt.
Renee
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