Martha can leave now :)

When the holidays arrive it's the hardest part about us being away from home. In my eyes Thanksgiving is a time we meet up with family that we don't always see, we eat LOTS of food. We respect each other and we dress in casual clothes, and not get yelled at...as the kids put it :). Before we pray for the food, we go around the table and offer what we are thankful for. Kids are usually served first, smallest to oldest. Then the adults dive in...respectfully of course, we all find a place to sit and eat, enjoying conversation, after we're all turkey drunk we lay around and nap if needed. Then we bust into the pies that we have and finish out our awesome TURKEY DAY with snacking, game playing and being overfilled with AWESOME food. With a bit of heartburn medication and the diet thrown out the window, we have had a fabulous day.. Nothing with a scheduled paper, or place setting name tags, or fancy clothes. Unfortunately being here doesn't seem to work like that. So we try to make it the best we can. I feel that this year we may need to be more of playdough than people. This year we are going to be sharing it with Candy's family and The Kelly's (which are a grandma and grandpa away from home for EmberLee)
Me, Candy, and Maureen met on Sunday to decide on who brings what for Thanksgiving. I was feeling kind of under the weather then, but went anyways. As we sat there, I listened to the way Maureen and Candy had things configured....I was hearing things like...We need to have place settings with everybody's names on them........We need to make sure the BEST manners are being used.......We need to have all the dishes match.......we need to make sure that the husbands are served first......we need to make sure that.....it was like Maureen had this organized down pat. I wasn't too sure that we were going to be having a relaxed Thanksgiving at all. I didn't want to have all my kids in perfect clothes, I didn't want them walking around all day on eggshells, and I didn't want to support the Martha Stewart ways. Not on a day where we are suppose to be grateful. It was sounding impossible for me. I was getting pissed off just sitting there.....seriously, when was Martha Stewart invited to my Thanksgiving???? When Maureen Kelly asked me what I thought, I was thinking that I might want to be quiet and just uninvite us and walk out the door. But I just raised an eyebrow and covered my mouth. She insisted that I voice up. This is when I really should have gotten up and left. But instead, my ornery, sick self told her that the place setting name tags were a bit much. The smaller kids needed to be served first, and that this was going to need to be a bit more casual than she was making it sound. She then decided I needed to hear about how her Thanksgivings were. Just because she had an uptight mother, didn't mean we needed one. I agree that the kids need to be eating in the same room as the adults, and I agree on splitting responsibilities. Candy and I have done so many meals together with our 9 children that we know how it works. We don't need someone deciding how to organize our chaos. When Maureen asked what I thought about the dishes, I mentioned getting chinette dishes that all matched and then someone wasn't going to be stuck doing dishes. Maureen was appalled at my thinking. She says, "This is a time we pull out the China, and not worry about fussing over who's doing dishes.While our husbands are sitting and enjoying football, we will do the dishes." Then she tells me that I need to be making traditions for my kids....I think I've heard this line before :).  All I could think was... THE HELL!! I am not spending my thanksgiving cleaning up after 15 people. If I'm involved in this....the cleaning up, we will be throwing our nice thick paper plates in the trash and call'n it happy. I got my list of things I was making and then went back home irritated as I'll get out. Monday, Candy called and told me that Maureen said that if we did paper plates that were decorated it might be ok.....I'm all, NO KIDDING, I THINK I ALREADY SAID THIS!!! But then she asks Candy if we can bring the kids over to decorate cookies and put everyone's names on one to put it at their place to sit...I love Maureen, but I can't do the Martha Stewart crap. I really can't. I REFUSE!!! I'm half tempted to ask to be un invited....I'd rather forget the name tags, and forget the stupid dishes, and crash after eating and not have to fuss about all the extra crap. But as it seems we may be having Martha for Thanksgiving this year. I will keep ya'll posted to let ya'll know how it turns out.....MARTHA'S way or mine.