Are we ready for the Thanksgiving Vent thread?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spending time with my mom is like being cross-examined. She asks question after question after question. When I ask about what's going on in her life, she gives one or two word answers. It feels less like a conversation and more like a demand that I entertain her.

If she doesn’t later judge you on what you told her, like my late mother did, then she is discussing it in the strangest of contexts with people you don’t even know (like my dad does). I had no idea he did that, and he does it seemingly non judgmentally but I once received a butt call from him and he was discussing how small my apartment was with someone he barely knew. Mind you, the man was poor all his life and I shared a bedroom with my brother for the longest time. Now he is “upset” about my living conditions!
Anyway, I barely tell him anything and I avoid having him over.

[Anonymous]

Sister who was overweight her entire adult life is now on Ozempic and bordering on emaciated. Now she’s telling me I need to go on it. So fun. I just said, “I don’t want to talk about this.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was so busy preparing for tons of people at my house that I didn’t get a picture of anything. One family member has a picture of all the kids attending that they took.
(They showed it to me on their phone the day of.)

I sent a text on Friday asking them to send it to me. (My kids are included).

No response. This is a person who routinely ignores my texts.

All I want was one freakin picture of the holiday we hosted! Kicking myself for not remembering to take one.

They might come back to you in a week or so!

[Anonymous]

*get back

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a huge thing, but I've had major medical issues this year. I’m starting to feel better, but I have strong food aversions as a side effect of meds. I normally cook Thanksgiving dinner and love it, bur this year im ki d of just offering my recipes ans small amounts of help.

The only thing I was looking forward to and feel I could stomach is pumpkin pie which my niece baked yesterday. The first one she baked came out weird (seems likely she left out an ingredient). DH went out to get ingredients again last night, and she baked it again
I was exhausted so went to sleep while it baked. This morning I discovered they had left it out on the counter...there is no way with my health issues I can risk eating it...but everyone else seems fine, and the oven is needed for other things today

If it finished baking late at night of course it had to be left on the counter! Who puts a hot pie in the fridge. It’s perfectly safe to eat

I have never refrigerated a pumpkin pie and no one has ever gotten sick.

Maybe you just never had someone as immunocompromised as that PP!

[Anonymous]

My mother is not a great cook but she usually cooks a turkey breast for our small family and then we purchase sides, rolls, etc. This year my mother said she wasn't up to cooking the turkey breast. She won't let anyone cook in her kitchen, so I offered to buy a prepared turkey but she said she knew someone who had done that once and it was still a lot of work and would require too much cleanup. I offered to look into restaurants serving on Thanksgiving Day, but she didn't feel up to that either. I would have just skipped going but I'd bought tickets for my family to an event near them. She wanted to get a couple rotisserie chickens so since she was open to that I looked around for alternatives and found pre-cooked, pre-sliced turkey with gravy in a pan (!) at Wegman's. She agreed to that, I ordered it, and then we got up at the crack of dawn for the 3+ hour drive to get to the Wegman's by them to pick it up. My brother who lives there hasn't shown up to Thanksgiving the past couple years and was deemed too unreliable to task with picking up the turkey. He did show up this year, the turkey was great, and it was a drama-free Thanksgiving dinner. A miracle! Then my mother gave the entire pan of leftover turkey to my brother who lives alone instead of keeping any for herself, my dad, and my family of three (plus dog) who was staying with them. I protested, but was rebuffed, and was only able to steal a couple slices for us before my brother took the pan and left.

[Anonymous]

Steak tIps BIL what happened?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Steak tIps BIL what happened?

+1 (although I almost don’t want to know!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mother is not a great cook but she usually cooks a turkey breast for our small family and then we purchase sides, rolls, etc. This year my mother said she wasn't up to cooking the turkey breast. She won't let anyone cook in her kitchen, so I offered to buy a prepared turkey but she said she knew someone who had done that once and it was still a lot of work and would require too much cleanup. I offered to look into restaurants serving on Thanksgiving Day, but she didn't feel up to that either. I would have just skipped going but I'd bought tickets for my family to an event near them. She wanted to get a couple rotisserie chickens so since she was open to that I looked around for alternatives and found pre-cooked, pre-sliced turkey with gravy in a pan (!) at Wegman's. She agreed to that, I ordered it, and then we got up at the crack of dawn for the 3+ hour drive to get to the Wegman's by them to pick it up. My brother who lives there hasn't shown up to Thanksgiving the past couple years and was deemed too unreliable to task with picking up the turkey. He did show up this year, the turkey was great, and it was a drama-free Thanksgiving dinner. A miracle! Then my mother gave the entire pan of leftover turkey to my brother who lives alone instead of keeping any for herself, my dad, and my family of three (plus dog) who was staying with them. I protested, but was rebuffed, and was only able to steal a couple slices for us before my brother took the pan and left.

🥴

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sister who was overweight her entire adult life is now on Ozempic and bordering on emaciated. Now she’s telling me I need to go on it. So fun. I just said, “I don’t want to talk about this.”

There is so much to unpack here. I am confident this is not how it went down.

[Anonymous]

I feel you all in the depths of my soul.

I know I'm late to the party, but I was also not jazzed about Thanksgiving this year. Started prep on Wednesday after working all day and was up at 6:30am on Thursday doing the turkey and general prep for the whole morning.

My parents arrive at 11am and of course didn't eat breakfast because they are saving space for turkey. In other words, they arrive half hangry.

I was taking a breather while my husband did his thing for one of the side dishes. I wasn't even sitting, just standing in the kitchen.

She then blurts out in front of everyone, "Be thankful you have a husband who does everything!". I've had a rough year and its now November and I have run out of effs to give. I just look at her and ask, "Why do you say sh*t like that???" Cue the jaw dropping and teeth sucking and tsk tsk's from her and my MIL (who is her own flavor of crazy).

I look at my husband, and he just dies laughing. She managed to insult me, my husband, and my dad with one comment. A trifecta of holiday dysfunction. We are seriously considering a change of plans for next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom always focuses on everyone’s body type and weight. She had already asked me how much three people weigh. I always say it’s rude but she doesn’t care. It is so annoying.

My MIL announced in front of my child with a borderline eating disorder that the flag waving girls in the Macy’s Parade are the ones too fat to be baton twirlers.

That is so awful. What is it with all these Boomer almond moms?

DP. I have one too. Barely eats, always talks about how she should eat more but can't. Looks like a skeleton. The day before Thanksgiving she said in front of my kids that she could only have a few bites at dinner bc she was saving room for pie TOMORROW. When we try and encourage her to eat, I think she likes the attention, so now I just ignore her.

That’s exactly it with these types. They positively LIVE for “oh no, Madge, you need to eat something!” Starve them of attention and they’re so disappointed.

[Anonymous]

PP from above. My mom was the one with the zinger insult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spending time with my mom is like being cross-examined. She asks question after question after question. When I ask about what's going on in her life, she gives one or two word answers. It feels less like a conversation and more like a demand that I entertain her.

If she doesn’t later judge you on what you told her, like my late mother did, then she is discussing it in the strangest of contexts with people you don’t even know (like my dad does). I had no idea he did that, and he does it seemingly non judgmentally but I once received a butt call from him and he was discussing how small my apartment was with someone he barely knew. Mind you, the man was poor all his life and I shared a bedroom with my brother for the longest time. Now he is “upset” about my living conditions!
Anyway, I barely tell him anything and I avoid having him over.

Are you me? These are my parents precisely. I learned a long time ago to be judicious about what I told them because they are so judgmental and will blab anything I tell them to literally anyone. They live in the small town where I grew up and they've said incredibly critical, personal things about me to random people who wind up being related to some friend from high school, and it will get back to me and it's embarrassing and unkind. So now I tell them very little and they complain about that, but it's the only way to keep them from gossiping about me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Steak Tips In My Luggage, Yo!

I would add a ChatGPT-generated poem, but our child getting an ecology PhD has shamed us so very effectively on the environmental impact of AI this week that I won’t. But shout out to that poor PP.

Like others, I adore this annual thread. Anyone else remember one of the earlier renditions where a ne’er do well cousin and her boyfriend showed up to the feast with a stolen safe in their car? A poster responded with something like “Let’s crack her open and see what we got!”

We had a nice Thanksgiving with DH’s extended family as usual. My DH is a brilliant man, and generally speaking the opposite of clueless. And yet every year for the 20+ years I’ve been making this massive, complicated meal, he will interrupt my cooking to ask me things like “How many place settings do I need to set out?” My answer is always the same: “The number of people in our family, plus your sister’s family, plus your brother’s family, plus your two parents.” Why?!

But you know this so why not just tell him how many place settings to set out? Common sense is one of our greatest gifts but it only works when we use it!!!!

Agree, the husband should use his.