My Thanksgiving List
I am staring at my blank page and haunted by my one-week blog deadline. I am trying to create a post reflecting the Thanksgiving holiday, but to be honest, my Thanksgivings usually STINK! I have erased and rewritten several times because a narrative of the events of my weekend sound angry rather than possessing that trace amount of bitterness that shape my soul. I officially have a love/hate relationship with Thanksgiving. Some people in my little corner of the social media world have been bombarding the web with daily declarations of their gratitude for many things from children to technology, so perhaps I should give my spin of mayhem on this tradition by sharing my list of love/hates.

I love/hate having children that eat. I have so many friends who complain that their children won't eat anything. To them I say, “They will eat when they are hungry enough.” (stolen from my mother-in-law). “Kneel down and give thanks because the opposite side of this coin is horrible!” and “Hey, are you going to eat that? If not, could you brush the mold off and push it at my son, he is salivating over there.” My children eat ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. I am not being figurative when I say this, I mean that if the item holds still and doesn't bite them back, they will eat it. I have been reading so many “posts” and “shares” and “boards” encouraging me to do creative things with my leftovers. Leftov...huh? I have friends who boast not having to cook because it is “leftover night.” What in heaven's name is that? I have to get up with the sun in the morning and pray that my children didn't drink the raw eggs and wash it down with a side of butter, just so I can make breakfast.

Each year, my family makes Ukrainian food for Christmas Eve dinner. These recipes usually have an abundance of potatoes, onions, cabbage (usually as sauerkraut), and sour cream. Last year to begin preparations, I bought three Goliath-sized jars of sauerkraut and two industrial-sized tubs of sour cream. I woke early Christmas Eve morning and began preparations for our feast, only to find that TWO of the jars of sauerkraut were full of only a miniscule puddle of salty brine clinging to the edges of the glass; every possible morsel of cabbage had been sucked clean. I hadn't served a large amount of sausages or hotdogs, where would this all go? The answer is simple.....my six-year-old minion had been eating it by the chubby little fistful. (Pausing to hold back the threat of vomit.) To be honest, our Thanksgiving abundance was gone in less than 12 hours from the conclusion of dinner, therefore alleviating my need for any culinary creativity.

I love/hate extended family gatherings. Of course I love my family, but frankly I am completely perplexed that I share genetics with any of these weirdos. Before I even began packing for our excursion over the river and through the woods, I received FOUR phone calls advising me that my children needed to be quiet and calm. These events alone make me immensely grateful for caller ID and the mute function on my ringer. Having six children is much like having an orchestra. If each instrument plays “quietly and calmly” it is still a combination of six little maniacal instruments and that is never going to be quiet or calm.

Every time I go to a family gathering, I feel like that stone-age video game with the little white pixel bouncing wildly between the two lines on each side of the screen. “Can you make your child stop (insert mildly irritating behavior)?” So, I abandon the turkey to scold the mildly annoying child who is mildly annoyed about it. “Is that turkey in the oven? We won't eat until midnight if you don't have it in NOW.” So I bounce back to the kitchen and continue stuffing the crevice of a dead bird and thinking about other HUMAN crevices that I could stuff with great delight. “Hey, your child is doing it again!” “Has anybody seen the baby, don't you keep track of your own children?” “The other two are fighting now!” “Your child just licked his fingers and touched the turkey!” “Your child is trying to eat raw potatoes!” “Your child is trying to chew through the can to get the olives!” With sore feet, several cuts and burns, and a truly foul disposition, I collapse on the couch after dinner. I am then greeted with that overly sweet voice of criticism that only a mother can give, “You know, you have completely ignored your children today.”

I love/hate Black Friday. Yup, I said it! In fact, I am truly UN-American and for that matter, I am truly UN-female in that I hate to shop. I hate to spend money, and additionally I hate crowds. My children and many others have misinterpreted my boasts about bargains as a declaration of economic hardship. Nope! I just have a self-satisfied bubble of victory that rises in my soul when I can stick it to the capitalist-corporate-greedy slime and only pay a penny for a laptop computer that I know costs $400 to make. I will bring sales clerks to suicidal tears while haggling over the semantics of newspaper advertisements, but would rather have my fingernails removed with a pair of rusty pliers than fight the crowds the day after Thanksgiving. Only once have I attempted a Black Friday event and sometime between pulling the blonde lady's hair and elbowing some old lady in the nose, I realized that for my dignity, I would rather pay the extra $2 and come another day. THAT is saying something.

I love/hate car trips, which will someday be a rant unto itself. I love/hate preprocessed food that is hatched in a chemistry lab. I love/hate people who complain about Christmas songs before Thanksgiving while simultaneously love/hating radio stations who are playing Christmas music in September. I love/hate packing children and dressing them up to look uncharacteristically angelic for relatives that you don't even know. I love/hate the inevitable trivia quiz (this comes with the homeschooling aspect of my life) and talent show that erupts whenever a grandparent is near. I love/hate tryptophan-induced comas that only effect adults and leave children buzzing around the house unsupervised. I love/hate parades with more commercials that floats. (Am I the only one who remembers when the Thanksgiving Day Parade had numerous gigantic balloons. I was really disillusioned.) I love/hate centerpieces that children are scolded not to spill on (or eat), but are just going to be thrown in the garbage after Thanksgiving dinner. I love/hate football, which keeps me chasing children away from the television screen so men can watch their program unimpeded, when actually they are all sitting in recliners snoring.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am grateful for so many things that are neither humorous nor bitter. At the end of this long weekend, I was grateful for my beautiful home and its blanket of filth that may not be hygienic, but it is MINE and a comfortable place for my children to be neither quiet nor calm. I am thankful for a house full of wonderful minions to keep me on my toes. I am grateful for my husband who narrowly talked me out of rash behaviors that would have me celebrating the Christmas season in a jail cell. I am grateful for the chance to fill a blank page with words that may not be read, but are definitely therapeutic.