tanks but no tanks

I've never really liked thanksgiving, it always seemed like, objectively, it was just a runner up to christmas: a practice meal, a truncated vacation, no presents, and ridiculous, rust-coloured, harvest type memorabilia; and, subjectively, it was a day when i'd have to do battle with my mother in the morning, my brother and father in the evening, and in the middle have to endure an oh so joyous holiday meal surrounded by three people who, barring the fact that we shared genetic material, never should have come within 3000 miles of each other, or at least never should have gotten emotionally closer than it takes to say "hi," "bye," and, "you're sitting on my coat". I refer of course to the bloggrilla/cancer grrl family.

Picture this:
thanksgiving morning, bright and early. Crisp, chill, my sweet blond head goes back under the covers. but NO! soon my mother is in the room, telling me it's time to get ready for church...

Of course I hate church. Church is like slow poison. But, my mother's wrath is like some meaner kind of torture, perhaps involving disembowling or molten lead. She ramps up the volume. GET READY FOR CHURCH (subtext: you will die a slow agonizing death if you do not come to church with me). The longer I stay in bed, the worse it gets. What do i do?

What of my brother and father? No succor there. For some reason, I, being female, am the designated scapegoat. The sacrificial lamb. The sitting duck. (Apt metaphors indeed, considering thanksgiving also marks the season of wanton slaughter of millions of tortured and tormented farm type animals...). At any rate, in my family, church is women's work. Religion is for the gals. The men in my family do not set foot in church. No wonder I had gender issues...

What do I do? if I go, I'll hate myself. If i don't go, she'll hate me. What to choose?

Well, often I cave and go, suffering mightily through the intonations, the hymns always played too slow and sung too high, the woozifying smells...;

some years I just slip out of the house until I see her car leave, her driving off with the ramrod straight neck, the heavy coating of powder, the absurd coil of waist length hair sitting smack on top of her head like a concrete bunker... and ooooo boy am I in for a fun afternoon when she gets back, and we all sit round the table, her furious, my father seeking higher ground through consumption of some sacred alcoholic potion guaranteed to promote unecessary outbursts of wisdom and utter conviction of rightness..and so insulated from her fury that he deems it appropriate and hilarious to start baiting her and egging her on to some dramatic resolution, my brother just drunk from all afternoon contact with my dad, the constant football game on TV, and the joys of being the excused sex and the youngest to boot, and me on eggshells, watching mines exploding under the table, dodging crockery and daggers, walking the narrow path of conciliation and terror like the omega dog of the pack...knowing that when it comes, the dramatic resolution will be carried out against me...

So, no. I do not like thanksgiving.

I am, of course wildly exaggerating. There were no real daggers and the mines were just little bitty ones...