Diary of a SubUrban Housewife

If You Don't Ask Them, They Will Come Anyway

The holidays are always a bit of a thing here. The season kicks off for us at the beginning of October. Between October 6 and New Years, there are five birthdays, Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas, and New Years.

So, needless to say, there's lots of angst and planning.

We used to swap off Thanksgiving. One year at my mother in law's. One year at my dad's. One year here. But that sucked for a lot of reasons.

Let's start with Thanksiving at my mother in law's:
1. Her condo is the size of a matchbook, and with immediate family alone there are twelve. (That's if no one extra like a girlfriend is invited.) Five of the twelve are under the age of 9. Four of those five have not been disciplined in their entire lives.
2. When you go to someone else's house for Thanksgiving, even if you take a little something home, there are not enough good leftovers.
3. We end up eating at least two hours after we were supposed to.

Then we go to Thankgiving at my dad's:
1. He's a profoundly bad cook and everything comes to the table either cold, burned, underdone, or my favorite combination: burned, cold, and underdone.
2. See #2 above for no post-turkey day leftovers (which in this case is a blessing, cuz you couldn't stand to eat that bad meal two days in a row).
3. He doesn't start cooking Thanksgiving dinner until everyone has arrived so we end up eating five hours after we were supposed to.

So after a particularly dreadful Thanksgiving at my dad's house a couple of years ago, Chuck and I agreed that, effective immediately, we were not ever going to anyone else's house for Thanksgiving. Whoever would like to join us at our home is more than welcome to. We're having turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberries, etc. But we're having it at home and we're planning to enjoy our leftovers for days to come.

Last year was our first "we're not going anywhere" year. It worked out just fine. His family was invited, but as usual, they declined. My dad showed up, as did one of my sisters. The sister made a scene. But we were home. We ate turkey sandwiches for days to come and we were happy as could be.

So this year we're having Thanksgiving at home again. The sister who made a scene at last year's dinner has other plans, which is just fine. My other sister, who is now on medication and is actually quite lovely to be around while completely medicated, is coming. I suppose my dad will be here. And that was going to be that.

Well, we were discussing the whole Thanksgiving thing at dinner tonight and Chuck mentioned that in fact his family is coming. And let me say that this is perfectly fine. But let me also say that they weren't actually invited. I mean they're welcome and all, but no actual invitation was issued as far as either of us know.

This prompted the a discussion about issuing invitations. I mean, if you want someone to come you invite them, right? If you don't want someone to come, you don't invite them. Seems pretty cut and dried. But his family wasn't invited (OK, yet, they weren't invited yet, but yes, they're more than welcome to come), and they're coming anyway.

So life lesson here: just because you haven't invited someone, it doesn't mean they're not coming.

Posted by beth at November 7, 2004 07:56 PM