A holiday horror story

So I kind of dropped off the face of blogger world.

Sorry about that.

I have reasons, but their boring and petty, so let's just stick with the apology.

Darn it.

I was going to write this hilarious version of the catastrophe that was our thanksgiving but I'm all full of happy flowery emotions from the great evening I just spent with my twins. Stupid happy thoughts.

Does that ever happen to you?

Does your writing change based on your emotions? Because for the life of me I cannot be edgy or funny or candid right now, it all comes out like a sad verbose dickens tale.

So.....scrap that plan. Heres our thanksgiving story with just the highlights, be warned, it's not pretty.

We started the day by scrapping all tradition and loading our entire kitchen into our car so that we could attempt thanksgiving on our own. Everyone was cranky.

My parents separation, my grandmothers death and the general animosity that had crept into my side of the family over the past year or so weighed very heavy on me. It made me behave crappy. Plus it's super awkward to talk about my husbands dead dad. It's also super awkward to not talk about him. So I just kept muffing up everything that came out of my mouth.

This was my husbands first major holiday since his dad passed and his mom was on the mainland so he was having all sorts of a hard time with all that that brings. He was a little sensitive that day. I was a little insensitive. It was not a good match.

Outo friends came to swim and hang out before going to another thanksgiving dinner. they were a bright spot in a bleak day. We will be thankful to them til the end of our days. We were not easy people to be around.

With me in my funk and my husband in his sorrow we inevitably ended up fighting. He thought I was being mean, I thought something but I forget now what it was. We eventually apologized and commiserated over the lousiness of it all.

We had to go to the store...3 times.

Stores on holidays suck. Stores on holidays 3 times is borderline unbearable and should be wielded as a weapon against your worst enemy.

But whatever, I was fine with it.

I hate thanksgiving food. I eat the yams and the stuffing and that's about it. I was excited that I had the opportunity to make the foods I like.

Except my sister had planned on making the yams too. Not joking, I almost cried when I found out, that's how off my rocker I was that day. I mean yam tears, really?!?

Turns out I am a poor kitchen communicator.

The result of this was my husband fried the turkey (it cooked super fast and almost burned but then turned out perfect because he's cool like that). I made the stuffing and got preoccupied and made the worlds worst boxed stuffing ever. It was inedible and would have been better if my 5 yr old had made it. As everything was almost ready my sister realized she had forgotten to make potatoes. My husband and I voted no potatoes but she vetoed and we had our late thanksgiving dinner an hour and a half later so that we could have potatoes.

The yams tasted like apples and had no marshmallows. I almost cried yam tears again. All I had for dinner was a roll.

We were all so tired and cranky by the time the meal was done that no one even wanted pie. What is thanksgiving without pie? It's a sham, that's what it is.

Did I mention the turkey? And did I mention that I dislike turkey, my sister and her fiancé are vegetarians and our 3 sons are not big meat eaters? Yeah, so mostly my husband just ate an 18 pound turkey. He's still eating an 18 pound turkey. He will never finish the 18 pound turkey.

Why did we cook an 18 pound turkey?

Because despite our most fervent hopes and wishes no one invited Us to join their thanksgiving so we had to fend for ourselves.

We thought maybe we could invite a bunch of people, do it potluck style, and make everyone's day easier etc... Except none of the like 30 or so people that we invited came. So we had 18 pounds of turkey just for my husband. And apple flavored yams.

At the end of the night I was supposed to head to the black Friday sales which started at the unholy hour of 10pm. By 8pm I was worked into a manic frenzy wondering if I would be able to get there in time. I was treading lightly because my husband and I had already done battle over giblets, petty accusations, insensitivity towards dead people and who knows what else throughout the day so instead of just making my family leave I decided to send hints.

First I put all the food away. Then I started loudly announcing that our kids needed to go to bed (did I mention my youngest was banished from the table due to crying and screaming and spent dinner by himself falling asleep in an armchair?) and packing our car.

Our entire kitchen needed to be packed and brought home so I began 16 thousand trips to my car. I got a little extra frazzled as the trips continued and I felt that my hints were not being acknowledged. At one point I made loud noises and gestures as I grabbed something and instead of making my point, I broke the iPad.

The just fixed broken glass that costs $200 to fix iPad. Then I cried silently, apologized profusely and felt more guilt then I have probably ever felt before. I searched in vain for a hole to crawl in.

Then we went home.

So, that was thanksgiving, it was not a roaring success but there were bits of accomplishment in there. Swimming with friends, sharing memories with my sister and my husbands perfect turkey were highlights. Also, we survived. That was huge!

Everything else was blech. I get why no one came, and it turned out to be a blessing. Can you imagine if all that had happened in front of a bunch of other people?!?!?!?

Note for next year: forcefully invite ourselves somewhere else or skip thanksgiving all together. We are not cut out for this holiday stuff. I should have known, the year we tried to host Christmas everyone wound up in the emergency room.

Well, universe, it takes me awhile but I get your point, I am not cut out for this.

Pity party complete. Now please share your own holiday horror story and make me feel better. Pretty please?