Breeding and Writing: Holiday horror stories

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–by Tracy Lucas

 

So, yep. It’s Thanksgiving. That’s the current elephant in the room, right?

I’ll go with it.

Happy Turkey Day, youse guys!

It’s time for big parades and football games and warm fuzzies and appreciation and tryptophan and pie, extra whipped cream, please.

That’s the cliche stuff, though it’s all true at my house.

Just as often, there’s an accompanying air of tension. Well, okay. Always. And my family tends to get along pretty well in the grand scheme of things; we’re less exciting than the Rosanne episodes I watch to fall asleep every night.

We’re normal. (Relatively speaking, of course. We all know there’s no such thing.)

But something about the holidays makes us bizarre. We attend meals looking for something to gripe about, it would seem, or carrying all the chips we can fit on our shoulders.

And watching holiday sitcoms go by, you can’t help but notice that everyone else has the same weirdness.   Is it the stress of making all the food for a massive gathering?   Is it the failures you were going to prove wrong this year, but find you can’t, or that no one is willing to forego witty tales of the times you screwed up?   Is it cranberry sauce when it’s still shaped like the can? Maybe it’s just dumb to try to cram a whole  gene pool  at one table and expect things to go smoothly.

Who knows? SOMETHING makes us go nuts on Thanksgiving (and Easter, and Christmas, and and and and)

So let’s have some fun with it.

Post your worst, funniest, most horrible or embarrassing holiday family experience in the comments.    Make us cry, laugh, or punch things.

 Maybe we can think up a prize, even. Hell, I’ll make you a construction paper badge and mail it to you, if you’re obviously the winner.

I know my family doesn’t frequent litmag sites to see what I’m up to creatively. (Yours probably doesn’t, either. Sorry.) Â

It’s safe.     (cough, cough)

Come on. Do it.

Let’s commiserate, and be thankful for each other.

 .

(P.S. – In all seriousness, I’m quite thankful for you folks.    You’ve made my year suck much, much less.)