Because I like to "torcher" my peeps: Putting the "fun" back in dysfunctional...

In honor of the pending Christmas holiday and the fact that I will be spending it NOT with my mom (where icky nasty bad disfunction abounds), and because I am thoroughly convinced that there is good dysfunction and bad dysfunction (the good being the ones with my chosen family - aka my friends - and my work family), I present to you some fond memories from Thanksgiving last.

I annually spend Thanksgiving with my "chosen family" instead of my biological family. This is a little bit selfish, since I have biological family in town and I'd rather be with my friends and where the food is better than going to my mom's or aunt's house for the holiday.

My chosen family pretty much consists of one of my dearest friends, Kara, her partner Patrizio, her mother Ellen, three of her four siblings (Audrey, Liz and the youngest, Mateo, who comes with his wife, Liz ), some Thanksgiving orphans who are also friends, "honorary" members of the family (such as myself, my partner and my daughter) and random other friends who either have nowhere else to go or don't want to go anywhere else. The total guest count is always somewhere in the twenties and everyone contributes to the meal (all are good cooks and none cut corners or buy pre-fab or store-made items), the fixins are predominantly vegetarian (about a third or so of the crowd doesn't eat meat), but with the requisite organically fed and conscientiously raised turkey as the star of the show.

This year, we brought: homemade bloody mary mix (with extra garlic) & the pepper vodka & garnish for said cocktail (garnish consisted of five inch wooden skewers speared with olive, hearts of palm, grape tomato and a spear of celery for stirring), carrot ginger soup (vegetarian, but not vegan), roasted beet salad with goat cheese and toasted pecans and topped with a balsamic reduction, and a dessert that disappears rapidly every year: a chocolate bourbon pecan pie. We also brought two bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau and plenty of games.

While I thoroughly enjoy the genre of family dysfunction, particularly in literature and film, I must admit to feeling partial to a certain flavor of dysfunction in my presence (let's just call it "good dysfunction") and avoiding the sort of dysfunction often found at the functions at my mother's house (we'll call this one "bad dysfunction"). Now, it could just be that these two types of dysfunction are actually one in the same and I have more teflon when I am in the company of someone else's family, as opposed to immersed in the dysfunction of my own family, in which it all feels so personal and harmful.

Regardless, allow me to share with you some of the dysfunctional highlights from this year's event:

• Botox - Outed at Last! Kara's sister, Liz, had previously confessed to her sisters and mother that she is regularly submitting to Botox injections (Liz is the middle child of the five, yet appears to be the oldest) as an attempt to curb her visible aging. Needless to say, the family is somewhat appalled and consider Liz vain. However, neither Mateo nor Liz's friend, Nathaniel, was aware of this indulgence until a somewhat lit Kara cattily outed Liz at the dinner table, just after Liz called her "ugly." Mateo stood, aghast, begging his sister to say it isn't so. After the initial shock from Mateo and Nathaniel subsided, Liz blew it all off in a "so what" sort of manner and poured herself another glass of wine.

• Liz (the sister-in-law, as opposed to Liz the sister) brought her mother, Marge, who was visiting from Alaska. Both Liz and Marge are deathly allergic to cats and Kara sequestered her new kitten, LuLu, and cleaned especially well for their benefit (this was, of course, something of a big deal as it was requested to Kara that the kitten be relocated to another house entirely in order for them to avoid an allergic outbreak). As we were going around the table proclaiming what we were thankful for, mother Ellen, a very political and left-leaning woman, lauds the "takeover of the Democrats" and stands and cheers. The rest of the room erupts in cheers and a raised glass. Except for Marge, who looks mortified at the taboo subject of politics being raised at the Thanksgiving table. She does not applaud. She does not raise her glass. Her sour expression speaks volumes and you can feel her discomfort.
  

• But that's not all! At some point during the giving of thanks, it is mentioned that there is gratitude that Ellen never married any of her less-than-desirable boyfriends of yore. Kara mentions her shock and awe when Ellen's boyfriend at the time bestowed upon her as a gift for her 21st birthday a "1/4 lb. bag of weed." Laughter erupts from the table and, again, poor Marge is horrified. One can practically read the thought bubble over her head proclaiming, "what kind of family have I allowed my precious daughter to marry into?" Shortly after this incident, Marge pulls the oh-look-at-the-time card and exits the festivities without even tasting the dessert. No doubt, she was thoroughly convinced that the frosted brownies were laced with hashish.
  

• After dinner, the remaining guests engaged in a lively game of Celebrity Password. Now, one of the problems of playing games with Kara and her family is that they can get really competetive. It's almost as if they are under the impression that there might be a giant cash prize awaiting the winner - things can get a little intense. And since Celebrity Password is played in teams, we typically do not allow family members or significant others (unless they are newly dating) to be on the same team. Audrey had brought her new beau, Alphonse, who was blending in well so far with this group. However, since Alphonse was not born in the U.S., his knowledge of American pop culture was not quite up to par for playing Celebrity Password. We explained the rules to him and he was in - a good sport, indeed. However, when it was his turn to give clues, he found that he didn't always know the people he was supposed to describe. This was driving the Botoxed Liz, who was on his team, batty and she wasn't doing a very good job of hiding it. Although Alphonse tried to describe several different names ranging from polititians to pop stars to historical figures to sports figures to local celebs, he was only able to get his team to guess one correctly. When his turn to give clues came around again, Liz, clearly in an attempt to offer support, says to Alphonse: "C'Mon, you can get more than one right this time!"

• And there was also the moment during the drumroll part, just before dinner was served, when Patrizio was moving all swiftly and shit all about the kitchen like a whirling dervish or something and he opens up the oven and somehow the shelf was not secure and he goes to pull out Audrey's root vegetable hoo-ha and the shelf got all diagonally topsy turvey and the roasted potatoes that someone else made (maybe Liz?) did a little flippity flip and landed in the root vegetable hoo-ha (hey! you got your root veggies in my potatoes! well you got your potatoes in my root veggies! let's make a candy bar! ok.). Suffice to say, the original chefs of the dishes getting all comboed up were not the least bit pleased about this fusion. Dudes, have another bloody mary, it coulda been SO much worse!
  

• Lastly, there was the tipsy Ellen walking around with her dry vermouth on the rocks while the rest of us were having vodka martinis (the logical follow-up to bloody marys) and talking about how she loooooooooooves dry vermouth and it's been so long since she's enjoyed just a simple dry vermouth on the rocks. Ah the memories, she tells us. In fact, she continues, she used to drink vermouth when she was preggers with Mateo, then she'd go and throw up so it wouldn't hurt him. Mateo's facial response to this was priceless.