A few weeks ago my mother approached me and asked if I wanted to spend Thanksgiving at home or travel to Pennsylvania to spend it with my grandfather and my various great-uncles and aunts. My initial preference was to stay at home, but the numerous English discussions of Gogol's ungrateful attitude towards his family caused me to change my mind and to Pennsylvania we went. It was awful. That sounds really bad, but my extended family on my mother's side has to be one of the most dysfunctional groups of people ever to eat together. They spent ten minutes discussing the various types of salt and their respective purposes in cooking. Is that normal? To further illustrate my point, I will give a brief description of some of the family members I had the pleasure of dining with:
1) Great-Aunt Nancy: She used to breed show dogs. Her kitchen strawberry-themed, apparently. She was in charge of the Thanksgiving feast. All day I could hear her barking orders at various relatives. She is also partially deaf, so she normally prefaces every conversation she enters with "I can't hear you!"
2) Great-Uncle George: I will admit, I know very little about this uncle. I have visited his house before and I remember his collection of fake cats in various unnatural poses. He did not say much during dinner and quickly fell asleep afterward, only to awaken for pie. Whenever he did speak, it was usually to reminisce on a time in his childhood when he bested his brothers.
3) Great-Uncle Richard: Oh, Uncle Richard. He makes his own birthday cards, all of which contain a small tidbit about the family's genealogy. He loves tell puns, often the same ones multiple times an evening. He speaks fluent German and often demonstrates this talent by serenading us with various German folk songs. He recited the opening lines of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night when asked to say grace before dinner.
My uncle and I play this game sometimes where we pretend that we are watching a really bad sitcom. But the truth is, all that craziness makes my family interesting, and as corny as it sounds, I am thankful for it.
Mariel, I must say, I have never experienced a meal, let alone a Thanksgiving, quite like the one portrayed in your blog. However, I find it great that you appreciate you family regardless of their unusual habits, for I think that this illustrates the kind of family unity that Thanksgiving promotes. It seems like we all have relatives who appear strange to us, but I think that we must all learn to love our family like you do in your blog and like Gogol eventually learns to care for his.
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