Unboredify!: Thanks, but no Thanks | Making Thanksgiving Interesting

Dear Mike,

I hope my letter finds you well. Or at least a bit better than it finds me. I’ll be honest: I never thought I’d find Thanksgiving so dull. For the first time in my life, we had to spend it with Dad’s side of the family. Yes, that side. Already a bad omen. Especially because we had to host. Woo…

Mom had never been more stressed. She knows they don’t like her. She’d been bossing us around all day and Dad insisted I wasn’t helping enough while he cracked open another beer.

Dad’s side likes to keep Thanksgiving as traditional as possible. The decorations can’t be fun or original. The food has to remain as simple as in the days of yore. No experimentation, no new dishes. The clothes have to be formal, plain, and neutral. The conversation shouldn’t veer into touchy subjects or debates. It’s like they’re purposely trying to make it as gray and boring as possible.

At 11 A.M. sharp, Aunt Sara was knocking at the door, followed by the two quietest kids ever. It’s like they were void of any thought. And behind them, the whole McAllister clan, all 25 of them, entered just as quietly. How in the world were they all perfectly on time? I was not looking forward to seeing any of them. 

There was this one new member, Uncle Chester’s new wife. Remember that wedding we skipped? Now was finally the time to meet her… Woo! She seemed just as plain. I dreaded the forced topics of discussion over dinner or even worse: the silence.

Everyone just sat there in the living room. No football on the TV, no tipsy conversations –alcohol was not allowed, at least not more than one glass of wine during the meal–. And the only chatty ones were Aunt Peggy and Grandma.

The dinner started out just as you would expect. Silence. Save for the noisiest chewing sounds ever and the clanking of cutlery. But overall it just felt tense. Not a single “thank you” to Mom for cooking and hosting, not even a child’s laughter to lighten the mood.

Until… the loudest burp I’d ever heard. 

The whole table went even more silent, as heads turned to find the culprit. It wasn’t hard to tell when Uncle Chester’s new wife, Natalie, by the way, went completely red and started apologizing profusely. I hadn’t noticed that she had hidden a wine bottle right by her side, and it was almost completely empty. Most of my relatives are non-drinkers, so it was easy putting one and one together. 

She became my beacon of hope. A rule breaker.

But what happened next was the biggest shocker. Grandma let out the biggest laugh I’d ever heard from her. She couldn’t stop. And the icing on the cake was when she was unable to hold in a fart. 

She was petrified, but the whole table burst into laughter. 

That was the ice-breaker we needed. It was like magic. The burp situation reminded Uncle Chester of a story, which in turn reminded Natalie of a story, and so on. They weren’t exactly funny, but it was nice seeing some light in their eyes.

I also discovered that little Tanner is something of a math genius. You could see how his face lit up when Math came up. Again, not the most fun topic, but the speed of that kid was out of this world. Like a human calculator. And he’s only 10!

At some point, I ended up next to Uncle Dan, who gave me tips on how to make the dry turkey work for leftovers. 

And it turns out Aunt Peggy does the most beautiful origami –says she learned folding towels when she worked at a hotel.

Just like that, Thanksgiving had been unboredified. And all it needed was one rule-breaker. One breath of fresh air (save for the burps and farts). I’m not gonna say I didn’t want them to leave, but it ended up not being half as terrible as I expected.

Anyway, I hope yours was less of a rollercoaster. 

I’ll be back by next weekend. Happy Thanksgiving, Mike.

Hayes

PS: I’m bringing you some turkey soup, it’s insanely good.

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