More than turkey this Thanksgiving

Hello Crazy Jug friends!

First off, I wanted to announce that I had a fantastariffic Thanksgiving. I am boasting because I have learned to manage my holidays so that I am not downtroddened with disappointment. Not to be prideful, but it is a huge personal transformation for me and a leap of maturity, finally in my late 30s! It is not like I really have had anything to be sad from all past holidays, it must have been in my make-up or "jeans" (a.k.a. genetics.) Don't know why. Maybe because my mom was always depressed during holidays. Anywho. It was a great weekend!

Here's how it went down...

Thanksgiving Eve:
We invited some friends over and set the table old school, with name tag settings, linens that I ironed before guests arrived, grandmother's china and candlelight. (no plastic sippy cups either!) It was great. Photos please...


(What? I like to show off! So sue me!)

Thanksgiving Day
We slept in, took it easy. Then, we headed out "Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go..." It was relaxing and fun to watch the kids run and play at my mother-in-law's house. We brought some side dishes but she made most of the stuff. She was in a great mood. It was so nice to see her happy. I can tell she is proud to be Nanna. She's finally 'coming in to her own.'

Day after Thanksgiving
My father-in-law wanted all the kids and their kids to drive out to a Christmas tree nursery to cut down our own trees, just like he has done for many years. Since I am a sucker for tradition, you know I loved every second of it. So, we all bundled up and drove out to the country's country. We packed a Thermos will hot chocolate and made a day out of it. Here are some photos of the fun times that day...

(That is NOT me in the red, that is my husband with the Mrs. Claus along with my daughter!)


Day after Thanksgiving
I decided to make reservations at a local restaurant. I asked for the private room and a table for 20! It is such a blessing that I am in a large family where we can request a table for 20. The ages in the family members range from 2 - 79! Photo please...


And, on the way home, I learned how to take photos with night lights. Kind of a cool effect...


And that my friends, is a good, happy holiday! Hurray!

Happy Happy Thanksgiving!!!

So excited that I have managed my circumstance and am no longer a Thanksgiving holiday victim! You may recall my previous post when I described my grief that my in-laws don't celebrate the holidays with much festive fancy.

Well, the new and improve Moi has discovered a way to promote the holiday hurrah without being a Miss Fancy Pants over at the in-laws! I have decided that I will still attend the in-law's family dinner on Thanksgiving of course. Family is very important to me! And, I will offer to bring whatever blah-menu item from a can that my mother-in-law would like me to bring such as SPAM and crackers, canned cheese or canned ham or green bean casserole -whatever - I will be a good sport!

However, the evening before this Thursday family feast, I have invited some friends who are without families during the holidays. They are invited to join me and my family at 6:00 p.m. for dinner. I hope to have the formal dining hall room set for their arrival. I will even attempt at preparing a turkey along with other fancy trimmings. I am thinking perhaps of making some beautiful acorn squash, caesar salad, a roasted turkey, buttered corn, warm bread and maybe some oyster dressing, a recipe from my mother's father. Just brainstorming for now! Most of the joy I find in dinners like this is the planning and preparation!

I am looking online and through my magazines for crafty name plates that my kids can be making this afternoon! More than the new development that I get to make a family traditional meal this holiday,I am realizing the numerous gifts I have to be thankful this year:

- Thankful for all I have learning in my parenting this year. I have realized many things about my children. I have been fortunate to bond with my daughters in ways I have not been able to in the past years. I love being a mom who gets to stay home and I love the mom I have become just in the past year!

- Thankful for family both in our nuclei and my in-laws. Yes, I complain about them from time to time but overall they are a blessing to both me and especially my daughters! They also have had the opportunity to bond with them and they have developed a special relationship together!

- Thankful for my home. For God to bring us to this small town and place us in this home was one of my favorite gifts he has given me! I love my home. I am finally, after over a year of living here starting to take pride in decorating it and giving it our own personality.

- Thankful for my new experiences and relationships I have gained in the blogosphere! I have met some great friends and have read some personal stories, comments and tweets that have lift my spirits with ROFL (rolling on floor laughter), inspired and encouraged me. For this, I started a Thanksgiving tag although it might be too cheesy for anyone else to want to play. See previous post down below for the rules!

Home for the Holidays

I am looking at my Williams-Sonoma catalog today and feeling sad. I am not sad because I can't afford these items. I've accepted that truth many moons ago. I am sad because I love to entertain. I mean I LOVE IT!

Ever since I was a little girl, I have enjoyed baking, setting the table and making name place holders. I love it all from the planning to the execution when the guests all come into my home, take a deep breath in of the home-baked goodness in the air and enjoy each other's company. I envision the adults tossing their heads back and laughing genuinely at the conversations floating in the room while the children chase one another up and down the steps to our play room in the basement.

Although my own family is small and spread even thinner, I am delighted at the thought of living close to my husband's large family. His parents, still happily married, both sets of grandparents and all the cousins and nieces and nephews in between live within 20 minutes away. Those who don't, make it a holiday habit to make the drive nearby to be with family.

Last year, we moved into a home that I fell in love for a number of reasons but mostly for the possibilities to entertain. When family members came over for the first time to see our new home, I would share with them that I couldn't wait to have Thanksgiving here in this dining room and kitchen area! It was during those new home tours that I started picking up on some quirky mannerisms. For some odd reason, people are reluctant to want to come to our home for the holidays.

So reluctant in fact that last year, when I called and emailed everyone to come over, most everyone told me that they had other plans. Not wanting to choose paranoia, I decided to gracefully accept their decline to my invitation and plan for a Thanksgiving meal with just our nucleus family of four. The night before Thanksgiving, I was driving to the grocery store to buy our holiday trimmings when I got a call from Fred on my cell phone:

Honey, Katie and her family just called Great Grandma and they have all decided to come to town after all. They wanted to know if it would still be ok to have lunch with us, oh and by the way, can we make dinner instead? Oh... and Mom and Dad and my brother and his family will be coming too. So are the Hoover's. Is that ok?

OK? Well, of course it is! After all, I love entertaining, right? I just wish I had more time to enjoy the planning. I have a grocery list created for our family of four - not 24! And, I would have liked to have asked some of the family members to bring some side dishes. Not much time - or budget - to create everything in the next ten hours.

This year, I have tried putting my feelers out to inviting everyone over to our home again. However, it isn't well received. It seems that people just want to go to my mother-in-law's house. Why? She doesn't even like cooking or being a hostess. She has even suggested that we just come over for Thanksgiving on Friday instead of the actual holiday. What??? She doesn't understand or value tradition. Perhaps after years of the extended family showing up unannounced hours before dinner time, she has learned to be extra flexible. But come on! One year, we went to her house for Thanksgiving and she didn't even make anything! I think we ended up defrosting hamburgers from their garage freezer.

She's too laid back for my taste. And, maybe that is the problem, when people to come to my home, they see all that I have done to put into the meal and they are uncomfortable with all the fuss I make about things. I have learned to try to lay back on somethings. I have accepted that people do not like having assigned seating. So, I don't encourage my kids to make those cute artsy place cards that we love making. I have even realized that these people don't know how to sit down and pass dishes to the right. One meal I prepared, I placed the dishes onto the table and after prayer, people stood up with their plates and walked around the table to dish out their own food. That was quite an eye opener for me!


And, so, I adjust to my guest's needs. I think that being a good hostess is making your guests comfortable. Much to my secretly hidden chagrin, I now offer buffet style dining when the in-law family comes over for dinner. But still, I would like to teach my own children the traditions of passing food to the right, using the outer fork first, designing the perfect center pieces and learning the art of napkin folding! Those are all things that I have learned to love but will need to figure out how to carry these traditions on in spite of the clash of family values at meal time.

Just curious if any of you can relate to this? Do you have any suggestions on how I can keep the in-laws coming while still keeping my love to entertain?

Why the Disdain?

Why do you disdain me? I have accepted that you have excluded me, excommunicated me but I still wonder why. Although I am your first born, I am not worthy of your presence. Is it because I am a woman? Is it because I am my mother's daughter?

Why does the sound of my voice make you shrill? I can see it in your eyes, although our eyes never connect. We have the same eyes for one another now, hazel and disconnected. I used to want your approval, your love and acceptance. I tried. I called, reached out. I forgave you. Still do.

Yet, I can feel your rejection in my bones. I can sense your recoil when I enter a room. It is painful.

Where did the man go who taught me to tie my shoes and ride my bike? Have I gotten too fat for you to love me anymore? Have I not been successful enough, or too successful. Do I not deserve you and your love any longer?

Perhaps you do not feel worthy of me so you shrill away. Perhaps you see the pain you have caused me and you can't face it. I doubt that you can see that deep.

It was easier to accept you and your flaws when you were stronger, younger. It was easier to set boundaries with you then, easier to shut you out. Now that you are weak and dying, I feel I should be more for you, better to you. But what more can I do? I have tried as much as I can.

Perhaps you feel the same way.

I have already started to grieve you. Years ago I started to grieve you. I had to grieve my own mother before she passed away too. You know her, the woman you once loved then spent my whole life hating and telling me about it even on the day I was on my way to bury her. When you both divorced when I was two years old, I must have still had hope for happiness. Today, I grieve that hope and grieve that happiness.

With my own beloved husband and beautiful children, I find my heart still broken, unable to love them in the way I want. I try. I have spent countless of resources on self help books, counseling, support groups, rehab and Bible studies. Yet, in my mid-to-late-thirties, here I sit writing about the emptiness and sorrow. I chose love and a bright future, but only find loneliness and heartache.

Was this depression and mental instability in our blood, passed through the family tree? Or did your actions spur the insecurities in my heart, breaking it forever more? Now, my own children, ripe with life and the light of their future ahead of them, both struggle with mood disorders, depression and anxiety. Did I cause their brokenness from my actions or was it an illness handed to them from the core of their being found in the womb?

I am not trying to pass blame. I am just trying to solve this puzzle. Also, wondering why the disdain for me, your first-born, your only daughter?

My Dad is in a Wheelchair

Yet, another one of my current life's tribulations is the story of my father. He is the only person in my extended family still alive and I am only 36 years old. Last year, after my mother passed away and my daughter got the diagnosis of PDD-NOS, I can remember awaiting the phone calls from my step mother regarding my dad's test results. They went to numerous specialists and even some non-traditional medical professionals over a nine month stretch. Yet, to this day, we have no accurate diagnosis. All we know is that he started losing his balance. He started losing his muscle tone. And because of that, at the young age of 62, he lost his private medical practice too. He could no longer stand long enough to treat his patients. His legs would quiver so much that he couldn't even take one step forward without having to concentrate and hope not to fall down. And, when he falls, he can't get up. I still can't believe my eyes! And, when I call to talk to him on the phone, he slurs like he is drunk although he is not.

When we traveled to Chicago last weekend to celebrate my brother's 30th birthday and watch him run, ride and swim in a Triathlon, I was startled to see my dad in a wheel chair for the first time. It was balmy and crowded and we were all tired from maneuvering through the masses on the crowded sidewalks. I think I drank like ten bottles of water to keep hydrated that day. I would offer my dad some water, or snack and he would decline because he knew that he wasn't able to wheel himself into the bathroom, I think that is why. Either that or he is depressed.

My heart is so sad for him and for my step mom. Today, the Saltville school system is honoring my father in the Hall of Fame for his years of service to the school corporation. Since he had to sell of his practice last year and slide into an unwelcoming retirement, this is a big celebration for him. We are loading the van right now and preparing for our drive there. I am looking forward to seeing others acknowledge him and his dedication through the many years. Yet, I am scared that I and the rest of my family may be forced to recognize his handicap - how it has snuck up on us, how we don't have a name for it and how we don't know how his future will stand.

More on my father, his condition and our past relationship struggles in future posts...