The Holidays
“The Holidays” are a wonderful time of year, particularly if you enjoy stress, headaches, overspending, overeating, hurt feelings, and generally being frazzled down to an exhausted mess. I’m talking about grandparents.
The in-laws think that they deserve equal time with their son or daughter. Bull! Who made up this silly rule? The kids, their children, (precious grandchildren), are SUPPOSED to come to OUR house. The idea of alternating years of going to the husband’s family home one year and to the wife’s family home the next is crazy. They are supposed to go to our home EVERY year. They are welcomed to go to the other side of the family the week before or the week after, but Thanksgiving and Christmas is designed for the children to come to our house. It matters not that the anxious-to-please-everyone young parents have to pack up their SUV Hybrids with portable cribs, walkers, favorite kid’s toys, highchairs, booster seats, specialized children’s food, and their dog along with its bed, toys and food is of no consequence. They should have thought of that when they were born. It’s the duty of the young parents to perform this miraculous task and drive with howling dogs and crying babies for hours at a time. The lyrics “Over the river and through the woods to grandmama’s house we go” explains all they need to know. They come to our house!
In exchange for this minor inconvenience of having to travel jammed packed to the gills with not very happy pets and kids, not to mention the spouse that is giving up his/her family to come to their in-laws, is that we as grandparents can tell these eager parents what and how they should be doing in raising their kids. “This is the way that WE did it, so naturally, you should do the same.” “Are you feeding that baby enough?” “Is he getting enough tummy time?” She needs some socks on her feet, she’ll catch a cold.” “Be sure you keep a hat on him when you take him outside.”
This invaluable child rearing advice is sprinkled in between career advice for your thirty-eight-year-old son who is doing great on his own in a tech world that passed us grandparents years ago. They still need for us to lead the way for them. Oh yes, and exercise. Who is to tell these grown adult healthy children that they need to exercise if not me, the granddad?
Another advantage of getting together during the holidays is to provide wisdom about house maintenance to these unknowing young adults. The fact that they live in houses much more valuable than mine, the fact that they manage to maintain beautiful yards on their own, the fact that they have at their disposal You Tube videos explaining anything and everything about everything, they NEED me to tell them to caulk around the tubs.
The holidays are great also because it gives me a chance to remind my children, whose net worth’s surpassed mine as if mine was standing still (which it has for many years), that they need to invest in 401k’s. How would they possibly know about this financial tool if I don’t inform them?
Yes, the holidays are great. It makes no sense for Bedie and me to pack a small suitcase each and drive to the children’s house where they have their children’s routines set, all the required equipment, the grandkids’ own beds, and keep their hectic lives somewhat intact. NO! They are supposed to be at our house.
How else will they see the Griswold’s of North Carolina’s home. Bedie decorates with tons of nutcrackers, garland everywhere, beautiful Christmas table setting, even reindeer bathroom tissue. No detail is left out. And don’t get me started on the house exterior. She has wreaths, blinking lights in each window, columns wrapped with lights, garland outlining the doors and windows, a spotlight in the yard with a timer to come on at dusk to illuminate the amazingly decorated house. All this is topped off with a multicolored crab-pot Christmas tree shining brightly from the pier. The children simply MUST come to see it, the heck with the in-laws and what the mother-in-law may or may not have done to her house.
Once they arrive, let the wildness begin. The outdoor speakers blast for the entire neighborhood to hear Bob Dylan shouting out Christmas hymns through his nose. Nothing says Christmas like Bob Dylan’s nasal voice blaring for all to hear as the tired, road weary parents, children, and dog flop out of the car after a six-hour drive on a packed I-95. It just doesn’t get any better than this.
Next, Grandma Bedie has cooked for a week preparing for their arrival. Food is everywhere, sometimes in places that we find it a couple of weeks into the new year. She gets up at five a.m. (or earlier) goes to “town” to the grocery store and procures more food in addition to what she bought every day for the past two weeks on her daily journey to the grocery store. Sweet potato biscuits, croissants, candy, chocolate covered peanuts, hot apple cider, cookies, fudge, brownies, cakes, pies, and a bowl of never eaten fruit adorns every inch of counter space—just in case someone gets hungry in between meals. Diet drinks, sparkling water, and bottled water are packed into a cooler on the porch (to cut our losses). Let the grazing begin.
A tent, tricycle, collapsible tunnel, a trampoline, musical instruments, a slide, books, toy trucks, blocks, two foam cushions, are strategically placed throughout the foyer and family room. Welcome to Disney World kiddos. Everything HAS to be played with all at once. Apparently, it’s against the law to spend more than forty-five seconds on one activity before it’s time to jump to the next one. Also, it’s unlawful for the grandparents to not jump from place to place with the kids. As a seventy-something-year-old grandparent, as soon as I sit on the floor, my entire conscious thoughts revert to “How am I going to get up?” After ten minutes of pure joy on the floor with a grandchild, sneaking hugs every chance that I can, this exhausted old man is ready for a soothing cup of hot apple cider and one of the multitudes of scrumptious snacks lurking only feet away. Grandkids don’t see it that way, so on to the next activity we crawl.
The parents, seizing this opportunity to relax while junior plays with grandma or grandpa, are nowhere to be found. Onward we go, loving every minute, cherishing every new trick the child picks up, while sinking further and further into total exhaustion.
Of course, we expect the kids to make this trek home on Thanksgiving AND Christmas.
Thanksgiving is all about the food—tons of food-enough food for thirty people, no exaggeration. Bedie rationalizes the extreme quantities by stating that this food, all beautifully laid out for one huge feast, is the same food that will sustain us for the next several days. And actually, it does. Throw in a vegetarian son-in-law that Bedie ensures has ample choices for his diet, and the quantity seems to explode exponentially. All of this food talk that occurs at the Jenkins’ Thanksgiving table implies, of course, that the in-laws do not have traditions of their own. They certainly do not have an abundance of scrumptious food, nor laughter, nor old stories to repeat as we do. This is exclusively ours.
One story told over and over again, for example, occurred a few a few years ago. We invited our neighbors Starley and Cynthia as well as another lady, Dottie (Butterfly), to join us for Thanksgiving dinner. Jay and I went to our friend Starley’s shop Thanksgiving morning to help him fry the turkey. He showed us the intricacies of injecting the bird with melted butter, measuring the correct amount of peanut oil to put into the pot by using water first, marking the level so the boiling hot oil would not spill over the pot when the turkey is inserted. Tip: this step helps one from burning down the house. Using a specially designed “Turkey Stick” made from an old tobacco stick used for hanging freshly primed tobacco in the barn to be dried, Starley and Jay slowly, very slowly, submerged the Thanksgiving turkey into the awaiting hot oil. After the appropriate time expired and checking the internal temperature of the bird, they carefully used the turkey stick to retrieve the now browned, crisp, deep fat fried turkey from the pot, and placed it on an awaiting pan lined with paper towels. We brought it back home, placed it in the proper spot along the buffet line that Bedie had planned, gathered the family and friends, and prayed for thanksgiving, thanking God for our amazing blessings. Then we dug in. About halfway through the dinner, with people enjoying the collards, sweet potatoes, string beans, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes with gravy, oyster dressing, vegetarian dressing, vegetarian lasagna, and so much more, Butterfly arose from the table, eased over to the buffet table for a third helping of turkey. As she slowly ambled back to her seat, she announced how good this turkey was—so much better than fried turkeys. She exclaimed that she did not like fried turkey at all. Little did she know what she was eating. I suspect that whoever fried the turkey for her before did not have the skills of Starley. Nevertheless, we all were gluttons and after our final bites were forced down, we scrambled (the best we could scramble under the circumstances) to the nearest couch.
The moral to this rant about how kids tend to leave us, start their own families, and spend equal amounts of time with their in-laws is that times change. They are no longer kids. They have their own kids. Priorities change and they develop their own traditions for their children at their own homes. Screw ‘em. I’m going to Boca Raton next year.