No, it’s not because it happens to be the “all Pleather week” in our bedroom…

I appreciate Thanksgiving week for a whole other reason. Don’t hate me for this, okay?

I love it because I don’t do ANYTHING. Seriously… we have no relatives where we live. So that sad and onerous “who is cooking the bird this year?” conversation NEVER happens at our house. If it did, the answer would be “not me.”

As I sit and swish wine around in my glass, I listen to my friends losing their shit over family-pressured weekend arrangements. To explain how this goes down, here is a comparative schedule of a typical thanksgiving long weekend:

Monday: My friends are menu planning and running to get groceries between soccer and dance. I watch Grey’s Anatomy.

Tuesday: My friends are cleaning their homes or packing the kids for the road trip to the Mother-in-Law’s (who is anxiously waiting for them to arrive so she can disapprove of something). My phone will ring a number of times that evening and I will listen to the girls complain about flopped pies or husbands who can’t match two socks in to their overnight bag. As for me, I check the larder and bar shelf to make sure we won’t run out of essentials (i.e. chips and wine).

Wednesday: By this time, friends who are expected to have the whole family over are now hitting critical overload. The phone is ringing at my house. I don’t  mind chatting, since I am having a  leisurely breakfast in my dirty kitchen, and all I have to accomplish is downloading the movie choices for the weekend.

Thursday: My phone is silent, but I know what my friends are doing. The ones out of town visiting are just about done trying to keep the kids quiet at some Aunt’s house while thinking of ways to kill me. The cooking friends, up since five, are up to their elbows in turkey ass. They too are thinking of ways to kill me with the silverware as they polish it. Ahhh. Stretch, yawn, turnover, repeat . . . Bonus: this night we feed the kids pizza and go see a movie. My friends, on the other hand, are drunk, sweaty, have not enjoyed their meals, and are counting the hours until it is over.

Saturday: The travelling families begin to make their way home. Their rides are quiet, because . . . well, this: “You just couldn’t keep your mouth shut, did you have to goad uncle Joe, you knew he was already drunk, God I don’t know why we do this every year!” The cooking families survey the wreckage that is their kitchen and find the family dog up on the counter neck deep in the turkey carcass. They wonder when the undigested wish bone will appear out of Rover’s ass and begin to cry at the thought of the dishes. Our family, in contrast, will go out for coffee or have a little shop through a bookstore after brunch. We might head over to cooking friend’s house because she always has leftovers. Shamelessly, we mooch dinner. I pick up a half-price box of pumpkin spice cupcakes on the way over.

You see, having a large, close-knit family in another city is the ideal. Thanksgiving is not jam packed with crushing obligations, it is just a lovely week in the Fall when my friends are too busy to come over.

I know many who are reading this right now and are thinking of ways to kill me.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!  I’ll be thinking of you darlings…

 

Author

Our Editor-in-Chief Magnolia Ripkin is sort of like your mouthy Aunt who drinks too much and tells you how to run your life, except funny... well mostly funny... like a cold glass of water in the face. She writes a flagrantly offensive blog at Magnolia Ripkin Advice Blog answering pressing questions about business, personal development, parenting, heck even the bedroom isn't safe. She is the Editor in Chief at BluntMoms. Other places to find her: Huffington Post, The Mighty and Modern Loss. You can also check her out in two amazing compendiums of bloggers who are published in “I Just Want To Be Alone.” And most recently, Martinis and Motherhood, Tales of Wonder, Woe and WTF

4 Comments

  1. Glad I read this, otherwise I wouldn’t have known that the stores will be closed on Monday. Running out of libations, now, that would be a travesty.

  2. I’m cleaning my house, prepping dinner for overnight guests who leave at 10am the next day. Guess what? Then I load the car with all of our prepacked suitcases to take the family on a roadtrip for an overnighter to the other families. It’s super fun.

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