Surviving Thanksgiving

Thank you for not being in my face

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of year where people sit around their dining room tables that never get used except on Thanksgiving. We talk, we laugh, we not-so-subtly yell political slurs at each other, and then it becomes a huge mess because inevitably, someone gets drunk. Or several someones. Magically, everyone has forgotten said events from the previous year, and we continue to rinse and repeat in the name of giving thanks.

MidJourney prompt: commercial photograph of a turkey in flight, on black isolated plain, highly detailed feathers --v 5 --s 250

In truth, we need Christmas in December. That’s because all the holiday good cheer (and the tons of presents) make us forget that we wanted to kill our Uncle Roy the month before when he made the not-so-off-hand comment about {{insert whatever you believe in here}}, whether it be political, socio-economical, religious, racial, world news, or being vaccinated (or unvaccinated), COVID, Trump, Biden, or #FreeBritney.

Every year, our family celebrates at my brother-in-law’s. He really enjoys cooking this dinner, and he does a fabulous job. I’m probably going to be blasted as some kind of -phobic or -ist here, but I think it’s even more special because he’s a single guy. Anyway, it’s a tradition for us to eat Thanksgiving at his place because he loves to cook Thanksgiving dinner. Albeit, not enough of Thanksgiving dinner. We usually need to stop at Sheetz on the way home for a chicken snack wrapz.

He also experiments. Last year, he used liquid smoke to make the gravy, which everyone else enjoyed. In one of the previous years, he fried the turkey.

My brother-in-law is also a hardcore political fanatic. I won’t tell you what side he’s on because imho, it doesn’t matter. But his relentless bullying drives me crazy.

He wasn’t always like this. He started a few years ago.

And every year since that time, my husband and I debate whether we should go to his house for Thanksgiving. Since we always decide to risk it, mostly because I don’t want to cook a turkey, we need to come up with ways to avoid hot topics.

So, here is my list of ten things you can do to avoid these discussions:

1. Announce that you have no idea what Uncle Roy is talking about because you don’t follow the news. Follow up with “Huh?” and “I don’t know” and “Look, a birdie!” (you can point to the turkey if you want).

2. Lie about everything, including your name and age. No one will know.

3. Get drunk. Then you won’t remember anything the next day.

4. Start talking in Pig Latin.

5. Say how much you love the turkey every time someone brings something up you don’t want to talk about. Or how much you love turkey leftovers.

6. Excuse yourself to pee. Maybe there will be a huge line.

7. Shove food in your mouth whenever you are required to respond to something. Momma always told you not to eat with your mouth open, right?

8. Sing Christmas carols. At the top of your lungs.

9. Buddy up with someone else, who will send you a text message. Then excuse yourself as you need to answer the critical text.

10. Go to Sheetz for snack wrapz instead of Thanksgiving dinner.

The Book Promos

Just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday, we have Harvest New Free Reads for Fall! chock full of some free reads for you. You’ll find a little bit of everything here. You can even start a new genre. Reading is a great way to avoid people, too.

Happenings

Everything has been fairly quite on the home front lately. I’ve been doing a lot of plotting and writing in my book, Scorned, almost to the exclusion of everything else (including reading). Which means I haven’t finished The Whistler (John Grisham) yet. But so far, it’s hard to get into. Mr. Grisham has a habit of front-loading a bunch of backstory, which is boring. But he’s John Grisham, so he can do whatever he wants.

Here we have some Willy fluff. He's hiding out in the dryer to avoid all those annoying conversations. See the end of the email for more information on Willy!

All About Willy

One of the readers to the newsletter, Polly, sent several pictures of her furbabies, which I plan to send out in sprinkles. This newsletter’s picture is Willy, an ocicat. Poor Willy died suddenly at 8 for unknown reasons in his sleep last year. As you can see, he had an affinity for being fluffy fluff.

I’d love to feature any of your furbabies, especially rescues! Or showcase any animal that is in need of a rescue.