Dysfunctional Family (Photo credit: Chris Pirillo)
Many times I have read a movie description which proclaimed the film to be about a dysfunctional family or couple. I never truly understood the meaning of dysfunctional until a few days ago. Peg and I were planning our thanksgiving meal. You must understand that Peg and I are widows who married. We have two sets of kids, two sets of grandkids, two sets of traditions, two sets of nationalities. This marriage isn’t like our first ones when we married young and stayed with our partners until “death do us part.” Because we started young we grew up together as a family. We adopted the good from our parents and families. These became traditions for us. It wasn’t long before I adopted the traditions of my young wife and she modified the traditions of my family to fit in. Together we set up a new tradition that was exclusively ours. Peg did the same with her husband.
Here we are in our mid-seventies trying to make everyone happy. Simple things like “what time should we serve?” become a major debate.
“My kids all have to work and can’t come until late.”
“Well, my kids have young children and they can’t stay late.”
Suddenly, the meaning of dysfunctional began to roll through my mind. Is this what they mean? Suddenly, two families merged into one begin behaving outside their norms. Will we ever live long enough to create a new tradition that melds the two families together?
If we do succeed, it will be because Peg and I will concede and drop hosting the holiday meals by delegating the job to our children and grandchildren, who I am positive will make us happy by providing our favorite traditional dishes from all nationalities.
I look forward to this year as the most dysfunctional Thanksgiving ever.
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- The New Normal: A Dysfunctional Thanksgiving With David, Bryan and DIY Turkeys (rr.com)
- Larry David Would Like to Wish You a (Sort of) Happy Thanksgiving (theatlanticwire.com)
Filed under: Biography, family, Food, Warm and Fuzzy | Tagged: Children and Youth, Dysfunctional family, family, History, Holidays, Home, marriage, Thanksgiving |
Dysfunctional would be if the kids and grand-kids became liberal Democrats…otherwise they sound normal!
Baileyoski:
That is what I am talking about. How did number two go?
I love this, it only proves that we ALL have dysfunctional families!