Thursday, November 24, 2005

Meet the Parents

Had Thanksgiving dinner at the sister’s place for the second year in a row (do I sense a tradition brewing?), but with one twist: her fiancé’s parents made the trip from out of town to attend. This set the stage for the first ever meeting between the respective sets of parental units and depending on how that went, the possibility of high drama. At long last, our rural, deeply religious parents face to face with well-traveled, worldly heathen parents. Two worlds, same small, small room.

To be honest I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this today and had visions of my sister, her fiancé, and I struggling to maintain some semblance of polite dinner conversation whilst the sets of parents glared at each other from across their respective sides of the table. Alarming from a strategic perspective was that my place at the table was in the far corner away from the door, so if food and plates and utensils started flying, I had no way out.

Much to everyone’s surprise and relief, the meeting was very cordial and the all the ‘rents hit it off. Even my wizened gnome of a grandmother (Yoda) was on her best behavior and kept the “1942 a dark year was…” stories to a minimum. Food, conversation, atmosphere were all pleasant so it was certainly a successful gathering. Certainly something to be thankful for on this day.

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