The first Thanksgiving I ever hosted was as a young newly married lass – same rather attractive husband – but it was about 30 pounds, 4 kids, 2 dogs, and 3 minivans ago. I loved it. Had 8 people for dinner, and it was the largest dinner I ever prepared and never had such a good time playing susie homemaker in my entire life.
Little did I know that after that first successful dinner, the holiday became mine. I own it.
Way back then, I confided confidently to a friend after the traditional dinner prep that I could not for the life of me understand why my own mother was so stressed at every single Thanksgiving. Every holiday!
She was always so irritable (nice word for bitchy-bitch-bitch), irrational and downright miserable prepping for every holiday that my sisters and I coined,
“Are you pulling a Mommy?”
A phrase we still use today referencing my mother’s irrational, often violent outbursts attributed to large family gatherings where the stress of miserable relatives and broken ovens and power outages and rotten potatoes proved too much to handle.
My friend was quick with a rebuttal:
“Sure you’re having a blast now. Talk to me after you’ve been doing it for 20 years and are ready to launch the fucking turkey against the wall.”
Some 20 years later, I’m not ‘pulling a mommy;’ I am that mommy.
Haven’t launched the turkey yet, but it’s totally possible. Thanksgiving is not yet over. Once the turkey is in safely in the oven, the table is set, and cousins are in route, I’ll be happy, happy, happy. But not now.
From the corner of my eye, I am anxiously surveying my kids to catch them in the act: making fun of my pre-holiday, irrational, bitchy-bitch-bitch temper tantrums. And when they do, and they will, I will somewhat sadly pass the drumstick along.
Happy Thanksgiving!!!!! So glad to hear from you. 😉 I’m right there. Hosting my first one. I only lost it twice. So far. Haha
Ha! I said screw it this year and told hubby he could cook. I haven’t been in the kitchen all day and I don’t plan to be. Hubby will cook, the teens will clean, I will eat and all is well. I hope the end of day is near for u sugar and u get to kick back and relax soon. Have missed u!
My sister is the “bitch bitchy bitch” I just got back from stuffing myself at her house. Burp.
If it was just the cooking! The cleaning, the shopping, the wardrobe negotiations…
Thankful that I can reemerge to the blogosphere and people are still read and forgive prolonged absence!! You, my friends, are so not bitchy-bitch-bitch!
I wonder the same thing. How did I inherit this holiday in particular? it was the first holiday I had when we married, and since then it is mine. My kids know they better be on another floor of the house if they have something to say because mama will light them up!! Glad to see you back. You can see how long it took me to check in on the blog so dont feel alone about being out of the loop…its a part of life as a mom.
All I can think of is a trebuchet. Or perhaps a game of Angry Turkeys.
I didn’t want to cook or clean, so I skipped the meal and had the fam over for dessert!AWESOME!!! Missed drama & got them all Turkeyed up and calm 🙂