How I really feel about thanksgiving...

I kinda dread it.
Lets just be honest here...I don't like it.

I like pumpkin pie. I like turkey. I like family, friends, and fun.
Why is it that all those are ingredients for thanksgiving yet I dread the day?

This is clearly not going to be a fun post. Stop reading now if you can't handle the heat.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

I don't like thanksgiving because it is a day of potential sap. Running, dripping, oozing sap.
It is a day that is set up to be about bonding and reconnecting and loving on one another.
Family...being together...being all thankful together....gag.
The pressure to perform can be so huge that it chokes me.
Family comes in with their hugs and their smiles and their lovely sweetness and it completely overwhelms me. Don't get me wrong...I love the family.
Truly I do.
Family reading this...I love you. None of this is directed at you.

I am writing this to purge the mounting stress that is making my tummy feel all woogy.
Call it a self mutilating...I mean motivating.... counseling session.

When my family gets together it un-dones me. Undone. That is me.
Family that I love to be with...especially when it is one to one....can be daunting when unleashed in multiples of ten.
Juggling personalities, food preferences, interdepartmental memos, and insider family snark can leave me exhausted on a good day.
Add in a little sugar coma, stairway pounding, and familial hymn singing and I might just tip over the edge.
Let's not even get into the fact that I am somewhat socially retarded.
I think they make a pill for this.

Now you may think that I should just shuck the family and get on with my life.
You might be right.
But I think I will keep them for now.

I just need to be real about how I really feel. I feel overwhelmed. My family...being the lovely lovely people that they are...will be distressed to find out that this is how I really feel. They will be all ministering and sincere about not wanting to stress me further. They will think that they shouldn't come over. They would be wrong.
I want them to come over.
Family is very very important to me. I love being with them. I love playing games and talking and reconnecting.
It is just this stinkin holiday push. I can't take it.
Maybe it has to do with my intense desire to be consistent. Maybe it is my not so secret resentfulness about having to have "a day" to get together.
Maybe it is my wanting to buck the man.

Whatever it is, it irks.

I don't want to do it. Just because the rest of the world (ok the US) is doing it.
Just like when I was a kid and the whole world discovered strawberry shortcake
(the doll...not the food) and then I didn't like it anymore.
See...if I had been born pre-Abe Lincoln I probably would have really got into the whole thanksgiving thing. But no...old Abe hadta go and declare it a national "holiday". Ruined it for everyone.
sheesh!

Now what I get is a day that has this huge scary potential to be drippy. Somebody is going to talk about how thankful they are. It isn't that I am not thankful. I am very thankful. I could write an entire post on my thankfulness and how important i think it is to be thankful. Truly. I am thankful.
It is just the thought of going around the table, one by one, listing the thing that you are thankful for. sigh. Things could get awkward.
(I may need to go to the bathroom for about thirty minutes until this part is over.)

It is almost as intensely nauseating as a chain prayer.
I really hate those.
The only thing that saves you is the little hand squeeze "I pass" part.
Every eye is closed...every head bowed...everyone too serious to call you on the fact that you flaked in the prayer.
Not so much with the thankfulness. Grampa is sure to nail you if you try to pass.
People will laugh the family laugh that seems intended to put you at ease but in reality just makes you revert to a 9 yr old with deathray vision that you skillfully aim at your sister with her big flashing teeth.
Everyone is looking at you. You have to set a good example for the kids. Think of something...anything....you have to think of a whole new thing because somebody took yours!
Could we pretty please just skip this part? Pretty please?!
sigh again.

Oh...this is just going round and round. I am not certified for this type of rubbish.
I think I am going to change the subject.

I like pie.
Pumpkin pie is my favorite.
I could eat it warm or cold.
It is best when it is leftover and you go into the kitchen and sneak another piece when nobody is looking.
I like that last piece in the pan. But you have to eat it before it gets all watery.
I am very thankful for pumpkin pie.
The end.