So, last time I went over to my sister Heather’s house, my niece was still baking in the oven?
No?that’s the wrong expression, I’m pretty sure. Still a bun in the oven. Yeah, that’s it. My niece was still a bun in the oven.
I guess she still is, for that matter.
Heather’s third child and first daughter still has yet to arrive, but already its effects are being felt. Like her oldest son, Brennan, going around to everyone, lifting up their shirts, tilting his head and leaning his ear to your belly and asking with all the innocence a 3 year-old can, “Baby?”
Yeah, I guess that’s pretty cute, even for one of Satan’s archangels (that’s what children are, you know), but the far bigger impact of this as-yet unborn, unnamed girl spawn of my sister was its ability to screw up the space-time continuum.
After all, my calendar was clearly wrong because not only was Thanksgiving not on Nov. 22 this year, it wasn’t even on a Thursday.
Sunday, Nov. 11, I do believe. That’s when the Walden clan got together to celebrate it this year. No, it’s not some weirdo Seinfeldian “Festivus” thingy, OK? We do not have a “test of strength” that requires me to pin the cat in a wrestling match (although we do have this thing involving a rubber chicken, a garden hose and some Quaker oatmeal, but that’s a different story).
Anyway, yeah, early Thanksgiving this year?The deal is, since my mom has long since given up trying to get us all back to the ol’ crib in West Valley, what with the outbreak of rabid mongooses and all, we alternate Thanksgivings and other assorted holidays between Heather’s house in Tooele and my other sister Andrea’s house in Salt Lake City.
It was Heather’s turn this time, the fact that she was about 14 months pregnant notwithstanding (true, it’s technically impossible to be rated PG for a full 14 months, but when you’re just short of 5 foot-nuthin’ and also pregnant, the resulting belly happens to appear to be 14 months along).
Now, with two children under 4, and a third very soon on the way, one might be inclined to ask why she would want to have family?especially when it’s our family?come and raid her house. I myself asked her this very thing.
Why not hold this shindig at Andrea’s I inquired?
Would you want to try and get two small children and a husband ready to travel from Tooele to Salt Lake when you’re 14 months pregnant? she growled at me.
Ignoring the physiological, anatomical impossibilities inherent in that hypothetical, I had to admit it was quite the compelling point.
As for having the soiree on Nov. 11, well, that’s attributable to the latest little devil spawn being due sometime around the actual Thanksgiving. We all figured my sister could do without asking us if we wanted seconds in between her contractions.
And so, we shook things up a bit.
Also, to save her a little extra work, we abandoned the conventional turkey dinner in favor of pre-sliced and easy-to cook ham, substituted straight from-a-box scalloped potatoes for mashed, and some flour straight from the bag instead of bread.
OK, that last one was a bold faced lie.
But you get the point.
In the end, sure I know it’s idiosyncratic and unconventional, but then, so are each of the other three traditions we have.
And really, the differentness of it didn’t bother me at all. Not for some schmaltzy we-had-the whole-family-together-for-this special-occasion kind of crap, though?
It’s ‘cuz the dentist ripped out one of my wisdom teeth a short time before and my mouth was so swollen I couldn’t eat a damn thing.