A Sams Fam Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. In addition to the obvious reasons for loving this holiday, I also find joy in the oddest of family traditions: the annual Judy/Brenda smack-down.

My sister in law is an uppity broad who drinks too much & can't keep her mouth shut. The holier-than-thou attitude baffles us b/c she lives in a filthy house & is your stereotypical white trash. Yet somehow she looks down on everyone whenever she can. My mother in law is a perpetually depressed and overworked woman who also tends to be quite reactionary. And no one elicits a reaction quite like her daughter.

Every year there is some kind of argument between the two of them. I never recall what prompts these mother-daughter fights, but they're quite entertaining. This year's fight started when Judy (my mother in law) asked my daughter if she wanted to scoop the stuffing out of the turkey. While Trin & I were in the bathroom washing our hands, Brenda (my sister in law) said that she wasn't going to be eating any stuffing or turkey if Trin was going to be the one handling it. (A little back story: Brenda is a germaphobe. She uses hand sanitizer constantly & has the weirdest habits when eating at a restaurant.) Given the absolute filthiness that is Brenda's house, the insinuation that the turkey & stuffing would somehow be inedible b/c my child went near it was enough to set Judy off. She started throwing around the word asinine in reference to Brenda then told her to just get her turkey & go the hell home. Brenda got all pissed off & stormed out, walking most of the way home before her husband picked her up & drove her the rest of the way.

For most people, things like this would probably be a downer. While I don't necessarily enjoy discord of any kind, I am so grateful to be a part of a family that I can find the hilarity in their dysfunction. Nobody's family is perfect, so I certainly wouldn't expect ours to be any different. I love that we're all crazy and sort of messed up. And even though it's not fun to see your loved ones argue, I am grateful to be in on the running joke that has become the Sams fam holidays.