My daughter had had enough eating and visiting with the family this Thanksgiving. This is how I found her minutes after we got home. Just laying there silent and motionless. Kinda reminds me of the Wicked Witch of the East. She survived all the attention (she's the only grand daughter) and made it through the whole day without a nap...although she fell asleep in the car on the way home.
It was a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving this year.
I arrived at hubby's aunt's house to find she had bought a pumpkin pie. Why, oh why, when she knew I was bringing pies, that's plural -- pies -- more than one. Actually, I brought three pies! And, she had made a Weight Watchers Key Lime Pie with some combination of green jello and yogurt. Except for the turkey, almost all the side items were Weight Watchers recipes. I think we are losing touch with reality when Thanksgiving comes down to this.
Drama continued with the ladies all convening at the dining room table to discuss the future of the name drawing for Christmas. This year is cast in stone with everyone already in possession of the name of the person they have to buy a gift for, but NEXT year the practice is stopped. Kiboshed. That's fine by me, but the machinations everyone went through to get there were unbelievable. This discussion was followed by the even more tooth-pulling treatise on who should host Christmas this year. Sturm und drang doesn't quite cover this one. I am leaving out a great deal of the story line here just to spare you the agony. Next year I just want someone to vote my proxy and leave me out of all this.
And, I actually got up to go shopping on Black Friday. I am becoming resigned that this is my fate for the next dozen or so years while the kids are still "little." I really wanted to resist going. I really, REALLY did. But, most of the things I had planned to get for the kids were on sale, big time on sale, and I couldn't let my distaste for the day trump my frugal side, especially when being frugal isn't an option any more. I didn't set the alarm or anything. Instead, I planned to just wake up and then go to Toys R Us. I got to the store around 7am, which is two hours after it opened, and it was still jam packed!!
My nephews are into Ben 10, which I had never heard of before, but my brother had to buy them some Ben 10 stuff when he was here to take back. It is lucky that Ben 10 doesn't seem to be too big in the US, because I got these huge figures for less than $5 each when they are typically $20. Only problem was I then had to send them to Switzerland this morning. (Word to the wise...I send my gifts to Europe typically before Thanksgiving. But, I didn't get to do that this year because I thought I could have my brother take gifts back with him, but he poo pooed all my ideas and left without any presents for my nephews. The customs/Swiss Post folks in Switzerland are the WORST. The post office here says it will take 7-10 days for the package to make it to its destination in Switzerland. For some reason, every year without fail, these guys have to open the box and unwrap every gift just to make sure I'm not somehow plotting to over throw their government or something. This process takes them a whole month. I don't know if my presents will make it to Switzerland on time this year!!! No soup for you!! Or fondue!!)
Sorry to rant and ramble. The last few days have been just plain weird and I am influenced beyond my ability to resist any longer :)
Hope you all had a wonderful and uneventful Thanksgiving!!
18 comments:
The Swiss probably want you to send money so that the recipient can "buy local."
And all that "package inspection" is a pretty good jobs program.
we want to by our favorite cookies, nurnberg cookies in germany, and we hope to get them before the holidays, but if not, then not. they are not exactly cheap to ship either. we also have a traditional german spiced wine, but i don't drink alcohol, so it is non alcoholic, but still very good. our american thanksgiving we had on wednesday was pretty good thanks for asking!
swismiss: LOL, your story of the Miracle of the Multiplication of the Pies. I've witnessed that miracle myself. What are the odds? ;-)
Don't you feel that when that happens someone did not trust you enough to take you at your word when you said you'd bring so and so food dish to the event? I know I do.
swissmiss wrote:
"I arrived at hubby's aunt's house to find she had bought a pumpkin pie. Why, oh why, when she knew I was bringing pies, that's plural -- pies -- more than one. Actually, I brought three pies! And, she had made a Weight Watchers Key Lime Pie with some combination of green jello and yogurt."
cathy_of_alex wrote:
"swismiss: LOL, your story of the Miracle of the Multiplication of the Pies. I've witnessed that miracle myself. What are the odds? ;-)"
Oh gross - store pie! I bet it had at least 30 ingredients and tasted like corn syrup. Swissmiss, she probably bought those so that she would have something to offer you, while everyone stuffed their mouths with your pies.
Cathy, I was watching a show about Advent on EWTN late last night, and I think that I heard the English host say that there was such a thing as a Catherine Pie (maybe I was tired, or hallucinating).
Ray:
I don't know what the Swiss think of a jobs program since there is a great deal of unrest in the country over immigration. See my prior post on that here:
http://st-monicas-kneeler.blogspot.com/2007/09/white-sheep-back-sheep-no-busker-sheep.html
All I know is that it is very irritating to have my packages inspected to the extent that they are!
DM: The items you mention sound wonderful! I think I've heard about the cookies from Nurnberg. There are some torts from a small town in Switzerland that I would like to order, but the shipping costs are more than the tort :)
Cathy:
It was one of those holidays! I've been part of hubby's family for over 20 years now and one would assume they know I'm good for whatever I say, but each year it's the same thing! I think I'm going to volunteer to have Thanksgiving next year just to get some real food. A Weight Watcher's Thanksgiving is an oxymoron and an abomination!
Vincenzo:
The stories I could tell about my in-laws. It was a disappointing meal with all the wacky dishes (garlic sweet potatoes and ginger cranberries) that are flavored with strong spices just so they have some sort of taste. The mashed potatoes had some fake margarine-like stuff in them. Disappointing :(
One Thanksgiving, my SIL insisted on "cooking" and basically bought everything. Canned cranberries, fake (box) potatoes, pies from the freezer case, gravy from a can...it was like the dinner they had at the Griswold's on National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation =P
I'm kind of a traditionalist -- set my tables all prim and proper, use good china, cook real and fattening food and turn off the d*&# TV (this is how it was done in my family for generations so it's what my reference point is). Hubby's family usually serves buffet-style with paper plates and then everyone sits around the TV. I miss having a nice Thanksgiving in the more strict sense!
Monica - I thought the photo was Cathy after one of her parties.
"Vincenzo:
The stories I could tell about my in-laws. It was a disappointing meal with all the wacky dishes (garlic sweet potatoes and ginger cranberries) that are flavored with strong spices just so they have some sort of taste. The mashed potatoes had some fake margarine-like stuff in them. Disappointing :("
*Vincenzo coughs. I like garlic, but that doesn't sound very good. I refuse to eat margarine. My poor saintly grandfather was told by doctors for years to eat it. :-p
"One Thanksgiving, my SIL insisted on "cooking" and basically bought everything. Canned cranberries, fake (box) potatoes, pies from the freezer case, gravy from a can..."
:-X
"I'm kind of a traditionalist -- set my tables all prim and proper, use good china, cook real and fattening food and turn off the d*&# TV (this is how it was done in my family for generations so it's what my reference point is). Hubby's family usually serves buffet-style with paper plates and then everyone sits around the TV. I miss having a nice Thanksgiving in the more strict sense!"
God bless you!
Terry:
The only way you can tell it isn't Cathy is that my daughter hasn't (yet) started to paint her toenails. From what I hear, Cathy's are usually a bright pink.
Vincenzo:
I can honestly say, I have NEVER bought margarine :) The other part I didn't mention is that hubby's aunt and mom, who are on Weight Watchers, use Splenda in their cooking. I may not eat the best, but I don't want that stuff in my food and I don't want it in my kids' food either! Yuck.
LOL on the weight watchers Thanksgiving...eewww!
WW is for the day AFTER the feast.
God bless,
Lisa
Lisa:
Yep. I think WW is great and my husband's aunt has lost an incredible amount of weight with the program, but c'mon, one day a year you can eat like a normal person! Don't subject the rest of us to WW food, not on Thanksgiving of all days!!
Swissmiss wrote:
"I can honestly say, I have NEVER bought margarine :) The other part I didn't mention is that hubby's aunt and mom, who are on Weight Watchers, use Splenda in their cooking. I may not eat the best, but I don't want that stuff in my food and I don't want it in my kids' food either! Yuck."
I love real butter. I just made a second whole Thanksgiving dinner (including two turkeys). :-D~
Splenda makes my mom sick.
I think the caption for the picture is from that old commercial..."I can't believe I ate the WHOLE thing!"
AA:
Welcome to my blog!
The photo makes me laugh each time I look at it since my daughter is very clingy - she's only two. But when we got home, instead of wanting to sit on my lap or play, she just crawled under the bed and laid there! She had had enough interaction (and food) for the day.
Thanks for the b-day wishes. Sounds like your family has type II diabetes (used to be called "Adult Onset"). I have type I ("Juvenile") but with the insulin pump I'm doing fairly well.
Your picture is just too cute. I would have been right next to your daughter after the discussion about the name drawing for Christmas. Conversations like that drive my withered ADD brain into overdrive.
You may kill any person who brings jello anything to a major holiday like Christmas, or Thanksgiving or Easter. It's in Leviticus. Those 600+ odd laws we never read unless we're in the mood for a good laugh.
Oh, and I'm with you on the margarine. Never bought it. Ever. Hell would freeze over.
Adrienne:
I wanted to crawl under the bed when we were discussing Christmas too. My daughter has more patience than I do and waited until we were home to do it.
Karen:
I don't eat jello. Never have even as a kid. I can't stand it. It's a texture thing...my brother has the same affliction.
I will have to remember that Leviticus line. I think I'll try it on my kids. They don't even know what the heck Leviticus is, but the mystery of it should make it all the more powerful. Right now when my son asks questions, I often answer, "Because that's the way God made it." I'll have to tell him to look it up in Leviticus as to why he can't have pie for breakfast or can't try some WWF moves on his sister.
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