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Posted on 10/05/2004 3:33:41 PM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Eleventh Thread: Wedding Edition: The Hobbit Hole XI - No One Admitted Except on Wedding Business!
New verse:
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Upon the hearth the fire is red, |
Still round the corner there may wait |
Home is behind, the world ahead, |
I have deep regrets that my wife and my boys never got to meet my Dad, as well as a few assorted aunts and uncles. Things held together for a while, but when my Dad's oldest sister died in 1983, it just started getting weird.
A lot of it is my stepdad's influence. He's a vey strange man. When he and my mom got married, even though they'd been a part of the family for 40-some years (y'all know the story?) they decided they weren't "Stormhands" anymore. They avoid family functions, etc. It just makes no sense and it dishonors my Dad and his sister.
We're going back this weekend for a "cousin" reunion. Actually we're going because my Mom scored tickets for us to the Virginia Tech homecoming game. We'll make the official family dinner late.
We were also late for the last one and heard the horror stories of how my oldest cousin got up and gave a 2 hour presentation the religious heritage of the family, which in large part was a bunch of ignorant spin. There's some strong heritage there. It's not what he thinks. Plus, my brother, my boys and I are the only ones who actually bear the Stormhands' name.
My sister-in-law said she just went out to smoke for a long time. Wife and I decided it would've been time to pick up the habit...
All that's to say that, 30 years ago, I thought it was the perfect family. Now, we're the poster children for the "Dysfunctional Family Christmas."
Yeah, but that "dysfunctional" business is something that passes. My grandparents (all of them) and my dad's brother and my mother's cousins are all, without a doubt, loony. My dad's parents were ok for a while but now... the extended family is totally nutso. But my parents and siblings and I are totally normal. (For certain values of normal, admittedly)
Since you can't control the cousins and such, you're doing a really good job with what you do have control over.
It can be real strange, and just gets stranger when you lose ~all~ the anchors of the family. We lost all the matriarchs and patriarchs that really held the family together. My grandpa and mom, then grandma, then enough of the aunts and uncles that the rest of us cousins don't have much of a draw to each other. It's too far removed now. For a few years it really depressed me at Christmas, because I didn't have the personality or the 'gravitas' to pull the family back together again. In the past couple years, I have accepted that the past was nice, but I have to make the best of now, and not try to re-create what was.
That's what we've done. We make sure we see the relatives around the holidays, but we've established our own patterns, our own traditions. It's the way life goes on.
Sigh... I am already missing the traditions I'll miss this year. Sure, I'll go back for Christmas but not before half of our "Christmas traditions" are done... like the annual "Wake Dad up the day after Thanksgiving with "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree". (His rule is no Christmas music until after Thanksgiving and he really hates that song). Or my sisters and I singing in the Christmas choir... the "Thanksgiving leftover sandwich" contest.... watching "Planes Trains and Automobiles" the day before Thanksgiving with our friends from down the street...
At least I'll be home for Christmas Eve. I wonder if I'll have as many weird and cool traditions for my kids.
Does that mean you look like hell but you're still sweet?
Honey, I always look good...
Right now, I use 2 scoops of reg with 4 scoops decaf for our first pot of coffee. It's just enough caffeine for that wake up kick, but not enough to give you the jitters. I love flavored decaf, and make a pot almost every night.
I'm prayin for ya, Rosie, and you too, Hair. It does make a hugh hole in a person's life when their Mom dies, even if she'd had a nice long life, but y'all hadn't even had much of a chance to know your Moms as adults and friends, and I know y'all felt cheated.
Yah kilt it...
Of course on a day I'd like to spend at my desk reviewing for midterms, I have to be all over the place trying to solve weird issues.
Midterm time.... sigh...
Shouldn't you be studyin' instead of tryin' to kilt the thread?
Bring out yer thread! Bring out yer thread!
Done! That wasn't too bad, either. Either I did really well or I did moderately badly. Impossible to say.
anyone have the link for the Sam Gamgee hip-hop(?) cut based on "Po-ta-toe"? I was watching LOTR II yesterday and that line came up and that cut has been running endlessly through my head -- what I can remember of it.
"boil 'em mash 'em put 'em in a stew"?
Considering I have had no time to study much, was depending on having time this afternoon but ended up battling viruses, and don't have time to read much before the test...I'm hoping there will be a MAJOR curve.
On the other hand...I'm not taking this for credit, so who cares?
But I do care.
I'll pray for you! Prayer does wonders!
Hopefully!
But at least I did find my wallet! Or my brother did. It was right on the table where I'd left it, but apparently invisible to me.
Sneaky little beast.
I don't. But someone around here does...
Oh, that's good news!
Have to run to Wallyworld now for meat and sodas. I'm ok on chocolate thanks to my Happy Smarties Delivery of earlier this week. Mmm... English candies...
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