The topic for Week 48 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge is “Funny Story.”
“Ma, we’ve gotta go! Everyone is waiting for us!” Aunt Judy and my mom prodded Nana Connie.
“Yeah, yeah – in a few minutes,” she brushed them off and continued chatting with her friend Dot.
My first time hosting Thanksgiving in 2000 was not off to a banner start! Our family never had a set Thanksgiving tradition, so when Alex and I purchased our first home a year into our marriage, we decided to make the holiday our own. We invited Alex’s parents and grandmother as well as my Aunt Judy, Uncle Marty, my cousins, my mom, brother, and grandparents. I wanted to make the holiday perfect and loved the idea of hosting, but as the big day approached, my excitement morphed into anxiety. It turns out I prefer the idea of hosting events more than actually hosting them. The stress of making sure everything was perfect – that my home was neat and tidy, my table was beautifully set, and that all the delicious food was cooked to perfection and precisely timed to come out of the oven at once – caused a slow-bubbling panic inside me.
Two hours before everyone was set to arrive, I was rushing around doing last-minute cleaning and preparing side dishes when the doorbell rang. Who the hell could that be? I wasn’t even dressed yet! Silently praying it was a flower delivery or some lost person asking for directions, I sent Alex to answer the door. All the family I invited from Maine poured in, full of smiles, side dishes, and apologies. They always arrive early, and I expected them to be there an hour early, but two hours early? Worried they’d hit holiday traffic, they gave themselves an extra hour for travel time. Turns out they didn’t need it!
I was a wreck, spiraling in a blind panic, and close to tears. I still had so much to do and there were too many people underfoot to get it done. Mom and Aunt Judy had a great idea. They promised Nana that on the way home, they’d take her to visit her friend Dot Hebert who lived in Salem, New Hampshire. Since they had so much time before our Thanksgiving meal, why not get it out of the way? They’d be back well before dinner. The three of them left and Alex ushered the rest of the family into the living room to watch football while I made myself look human.
Dinner was supposed to be served at 3:00. I finished up my final side dishes, Alex dealt with the turkey, and everything was ready right on time. My in-laws arrived shortly before 3:00, but there was still no sign of Aunt Judy, Mom, and Nana. 3:15 came and went. By 3:20, my mother-in-law was pushing us to serve the food, but I felt it was rude to start eating before everyone got there. By 3:30, we were all worried. They were never, ever late and by that time they’d been gone well over two hours. Did they get into an accident? We looked up Dot’s phone number and she let us know they’d left her home ten minutes before. Relief mingled with hanger. I’m quite stabby on an empty stomach. Why had they left so late? They knew what time we were eating. Weren’t they hungry? The rest of us certainly were!
When Nana traipsed in at ten minutes to 4:00 with Mom and Aunt Judy trailing behind her looking annoyed, I exploded like a crazed banshee. “Where were you? We thought you were dead! We’ve been waiting almost an hour to eat! The food is probably ruined by now!”
Nana grinned sheepishly like a naughty child, “Awwww, don’t be upset! We were visiting Dot! I hadn’t seen her in so long! Please don’t be mad, Julie!” she offered a fake-pout and batted her eyelashes. Mom and Aunt Judy apologized. They thought Salem was only 15 minutes away – it was closer to 30, and then they couldn’t drag Nana out of there. She kept talking and talking. “We told her we could only stay a half hour. We kept telling her, ‘Ma, we’ve gotta go! We’ve gotta go! We’re eating at 3:00!’ but she wouldn’t listen!”
Nana was an adorable person. It was impossible to stay mad at her, so I let it slide. We crowded around the table, all of us ravenous by that point. As Nana loaded her plate high with food, she happily filled us in on her visit with Dot – how nice it was to see her and her children, how big some of her grandchildren were, how she’d been doing since her husband Armand died….and how many wonderful things there were to eat there.
As the words left her lips, the table fell silent. Mom and Aunt Judy exchanged uneasy glances.
“Woah,” I held up a hand, “You ate there?”
Mom was quick to throw Nana under the bus, “We didn’t eat there – your grandmother ate there. She kept picking at their leftovers until they finally offered to make her a plate. We tried to get her out of there, but she kept stuffing her face and talking.”
“So let me get this straight,” I intoned slowly, a deadly edge to my voice. “While your family was waiting for you, starving, you were eating Thanksgiving dinner with your friend and her family?”
“Don’t be mad! I was hungry!” Nana simpered.
“So were we! We were all hungry! Everyone wanted to eat without you, and I kept telling them, ‘No, that’s rude – we have to wait,’ all while you were eating a whole damn meal at Dot’s? What the hell, Nana? I can’t believe you!”
She offered a charming, cutesy apology, that I didn’t believe for a second. She was probably sorry I was angry with her, but if she had the power to turn back time, she wouldn’t have changed anything. She got two great meals, lots of attention, and had a nice, long visit with her old friend.
“Someday you’ll look back on this and laugh,” is a common saying. It didn’t take long to forgive my grandmother – as I said, she was quite charming and it was hard to stay mad at her for long– but it took many, many years before I could look back and laugh at the year Nana nearly ruined Thanksgiving.
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