I don’t know about anyone else, but trying to coordinate holidays for the inlaws and the outlaws can be overwhelming. When we were first dating and married, Christmas Eve consisted of four gift openings over the course of 12 hours from Pine Island to Saint Charles to Elgin.
It got to be way too much, and the year that I was pregnant with Young Man was the worst for some reason. After that, we told both sides of the family that we were designating the given holiday on the even years for the Brogans and on the odd years for the Brehmers. This system has worked well for us in the ensuing 25 years.
Since this is an odd-number year, we had Brogan family Thanksgiving yesterday at captain’s mom’s house. I don’t know what your family gatherings are like, but in Brogan World it is loud, obnoxious, and there are probably swear words flying around. And that’s just during the pie making tradition with Princess and her cousins at Gramma’s house.
The menu has been predetermined for the last ten years with a few twists now and then. My job has always been deviled eggs. This year, Captain’s mom decided to start delegating some more duties, so I got mashed potatoes. Both extremely simple things to do...until you are done boiling the potatoes and discover not only are you out of butter, you don’t have a potato masher! Luckily those were an easy fix by sending Captain next door to his mom’s house to borrow those things.
Once we got everything carted next door, it was party time. This year was Princess’ boyfriend, Rudy’s, first Brogan clan event. According to Mama Bear, who is now an old hand at the Brogan thing, “You guys can be overwhelming to the new person.” She’s 100% correct!
While dinner was being put together, there were four different conversations going, and no one could get a sentence completed without being interrupted a half dozen times. This is especially true of Captain because he is so soft spoken that, first off, no one can hear him anyway, and in addition, we all talk over each other constantly. It’s a mad house.
After a prayer of Thanksgiving and a feast of monster proportions, it was game time. There is always one table of 500 going at a card table in the living room, and the dining room table is where the serious competitions happen. Not kidding. Spoons is a full contact sport in Brogan World. I have seen Mike’s brother come across the table and tackle Princess to gain control of the last remaining spoon, but Princess gave as good as she got. I don’t even remember who ended up with the spoon, I just remember Captain saying “Don’t wreck the table” because it is earmarked for him when his mom decides to downsize. Luckily there was no bloodshed...that time.
Sometimes we nix the contact sports for a nice "sedate" game of Telestrations. If you have never played it, it’s kind of a cross between the old game Operator and Pictionary. Each person starts with a word and has to draw their best rendition of said word on a spiral-bound dry erase notebook. The notebook is then passed to the person to your left who has to look at the picture, decide what it is, flip the page on the notebook and write down what they think it is...pass it on...and so on. So you alternate between drawing a picture and writing down a guess. When the notebook gets back to the original person, you go around the table and go through the drawings and the guesses. It can go in any direction at any point and it’s rare the end result is what the original word was. For example (from the internet, not the Brogans...but it could happen):
At the end of the day, though, it isn’t about who won what game, it’s about spending quality time with those you love the most and being thankful for the blessings in your life.
From our house to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!
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