Tantrums, Torment and Turkey!

It's Thanksgiving week and the holiday season is upon us. Birds will be stuffed and browned, potatoes mashed into fluffy perfection and bubbly champagne chilled. The table will set with the best silver, your grandmother's china and fancy cloth napkins. Little girls will be wearing red velvet dresses with big bows in their hair. Little boys' faces will be scrubbed and their button-down dress shirts will be tucked in. Manners will be used and the conversation will be pleasant and friendly. Bing Crosby will be singing about a White Christmas in the background as the fireplace crackles. Glasses will be raised up high to another year of prosperity, abundant health and happiness and most of all love.

Oh, how I wish! Not once has a holiday with my family included anything close to the peaceful vision described above. Lord knows, my mom tries.

We have had some doozies with full-blown meltdowns and nobody ever seems to be on their best behavior. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just my dysfunctional family witnessing the spectacle. But my mother always ends up inviting several people over to join us. It doesn't matter if she knows them well or not… the more the merrier, in her mind.

"It's Thanksgiving", she says to them. "We have plenty! Come on over and be with us. It will be very relaxed and you'll have a great time."

Suckers.

I remember being about 15 when my mom's fairly new boyfriend joined us. I was so annoyed at how mushy they were behaving all day. They had just sat down in the living room to relax after dinner when I asked her if I could go hang out with my friends. My mom lectured me on holidays being about spending time with family not having fun. I was furious and stomped up the stairs to my room cursing a blue streak that would have embarrassed George Carlin. The poor boyfriend looked shocked. So I cursed at him too. I didn't want him to feel left out. It was the holidays after all. My mom actually ended up marrying him a year later. This was his favorite story to tell.

In 2001, I was breastfeeding my newborn son and not drinking. Once again we gathered at my mom's for Thanksgiving. My husband and my sister had been keeping themselves busy inventing potent drinks from the contents of my mother's liquor cabinet. Alcohol is truly the only way to survive more than 90 minute with my family. They had started to get pretty rowdy about the time that the turkey was placed on the table. Well, every year my mom makes everyone go around the table and say what they are most thankful for before we eat. My mom said it was health and I obediently told everyone I was thankful for friends and family. My sister declared it was free food and my husband chimed in, "FREE LIQUOR!" followed by fits of laughter. You should have seen my mom's face. I was actually frightened for his life that year.

Then there was the Thanksgiving right after I got divorced that mom decided it was time for me to get back on the horse. She invited two brothers over to eat with us. It was a set up. Like a date. In fact, I believe it was a double date. Awkward. I'm sure she talked me up really good…her sweet, fair-skinned, blonde-haired, blue-eyed daughter. But I was more than a little bitter around that time in my life. And I've always had a potty mouth. I dropped my first F-bomb over hors-d'oeuvres. I'm pretty sure next I made some disparaging remarks about how I think love sucks. Oddly our romance never seemed to take off. You've never seen two men high-tail it out of a house so fast after dinner.

The year after that, my mom decided that she wanted all her closest friends to get to know each other better. What I remember most is the New York vegetarian yoga instructor who brought a tofu salad as a side dish. And the former bridge engineer that was mostly deaf after years of working with explosives. The vegetarian was the loudest, smackingest, noise-makingest eater I had ever heard. The bridge engineer so was lucky he couldn't hear her. But he also couldn't hear us, which meant he spoke at about 120 decibels. I could hardly contain myself.

Last year I decided I needed a change and went to New Orleans for Thanksgiving. My sister Amanda lives there and my kids were with my ex. We poured our first mimosas by 9am and cut into the pumpkin pie for breakfast. We watched movies in our jammies while the turkey cooked and drank a lot of wine. It was quiet and lazy and just the two of us. There were no rules, no manners, no stress, no fancy silverware…heck, we didn't even eat at the dining room table. She doesn't have one. I sat on her front porch that afternoon and listened to an old Cajun man talking about the raccoon his family had just eaten. It was the best holiday I've ever had.

This year we are buckling our seatbelts for another traditional Byrum holiday. My sister just got to town and we will once again spend the day at my mom's. There is no doubt in my mind that there will be drama, mayhem, and defenseless strangers seated beside us at the table.

So what are the lessons I have learned about this holiday during my 44 years with my crazy family?

My mom should probably stop inviting me over for Thanksgiving. Blind dates are never a good idea. Tofu and turkey are not an ideal combination to celebrate the pilgrims and Indians. Cursing like a sailor can without a doubt make any Thanksgiving more memorable. And you truly don't need fine china, cloth napkins and silver to enjoy the real meaning of the season.

But most of all, there is a lesson you should learn from all this. If my mother happens to invite you to join us on Thursday, for goodness sakes, bring vodka. Lots of vodka.