family

after looking over my last post, i realized i need to clarify something. both of my parents came from the same small town in north carolina, so when we come down here, we see both sides of the family. granddaddy is my mother's father, and grammer is my father's mother. hopefully that clears things up a bit.

spent the whole day yesterday with my dad's family. it was nuts. we are all insane normally, but when we get together things just escalate. (yes, this would be the same bunch that was talking about chewing tobacco and musical chairs at the funeral home.) we did our standard christmas activity of eating assorted junk food all morning, having a huge meal in the afternoon, then eating leftovers and dessert all evening. this, plus opening presents and talking a lot, constitutes pretty much all we do on christmas. i think this conversation between my grandma and my dad really sums it up:

"We can't start opening presents. Bizza hasn't finished eating."
"That can't stop us. If we wait until nobody is eating, we'll never get out of here."

food is a big deal in my family. grammer makes all this food for christmas that she never makes any other time of the year. why she doesn't, we don't know, but the end result is that we spend the whole holiday eating nothing but cookies, chex mix, cheese wafers, M&Ms, chocolate peanut butter balls, chocolate trash, and all sorts of other things that are bad for you. health food fanatics, we are not.

opening presents with them is always an adventure. per family tradition, we all have to sit down together, pass out the presents, then go around the circle opening one present at a time so everybody can see. it sounds awful, but i love it. due to our special breed of lunacy, the gifts are often hilarious, and the reactions to them are priceless. especially since uncle john (my great-uncle) & co were there, so we had the "tacky presents" too. the Tacky Present Contest is an annual event between my grandmother and uncle john that has been going on for as long as i can remember. the premise is simple - they each try to find the tackiest gift for each other that they can, and then everybody votes on which is the worst. there are only two rules: 1) it has to be a real item that is purchased (as opposed to something that you yourself have made), and 2) it has to have originally been a serious item. nothing that is designed to be ugly or funny counts. these things are usually found at flea markets and church rummage sales. over the years, they have come up with some real gems: multiple figurines made of shells, a miniature grandfather clock with martin luther king jr's face as the face of the clock, a picture of a cartoonish devil sitting on the toilet painted on brown velvet, a platic gold fan with a clock inside of it and roses glued on (this one scared the dog), etc. this year was a tie between a hideous paper-mache cat with brightly colored flowers all over it, and an eskimo "doll" made of three round potholders, a face cut off a doll, yarn braids, and wearing ice skates made of yarn and paper clips.

we spent the rest of the time sitting around and talking. but not talking like a normal family. oh no. it's like the unwritten rule is that you have to be talking to someone at all times, but it has to be someone across the room. also, no more than three people can be talking about the same thing. bonus points if someone involved in the conversation is in another room.

jess and ryan will love this - the highlight of the day for me was the bluegrass music. my sisters play the fiddle and the guitar, my uncle terry is a bluegrass guitarist, and charlie (my dad's cousin) plays bluegrass guitar and banjo. twice during the day, they sat around picking. (for those of you unfamiliar with the ways of us southerners, "picking" is when they sorta mess around with the music, playing whatever songs they happen to think of. it's a lot of one person starting a song, and everybody else just joining in whenever they pick up on it. in the words of briscoe darling: "just jump in when you can, and hang on".) i absolutely loved it. it was true bluegrass, doc watson, earl scruggs, and lester flatts style - none of this new stuff with drums and whatnot. the only thing missing was the mandolin (and that was only because charlie left it at home). and no, this does not make me a hick. this music is in my blood, i can't deny it.

i had the best time. the whole shindig may sound a little crazy, but they're my family, and i love them. there's nothing i like more than sitting around talking and laughing with them.