It's hard to believe, but Thanksgiving week is already here, and you're most likely going to have to go home to your family for a few days, whether you like it or not. And when I say "it," I'm referring to your family.
Maybe it's because I have no life, but for whatever reason, I keep catching glimpses of made-for-TV movies on ABC Family or other inane channels that are pitching some heartwarming story for the holidays. You know the type. The voiceover usually goes something like this: "He was a deaf-mute with webbed feet. She was a Cocker Spaniel. But one magical day, they learned what it means to be a family."
Besides the miracle-oriented stories, there are always a bevy of movies or TV shows that depict "normal" families doing whatever "normal" things are usually expected during the holidays. Grandparents tell stories of Christmases past, the family gathers in the kitchen, and father wears his festive sweater that's kept in a hyperbaric chamber for the other 11 months of the year.
Here's a shock -- this isn't real. There is no such thing (nor was there ever, nor will there ever be) as a normal family. My family has issues, your family has issues and that really rich family that always looks perfect and drives around in the BMW X5 has more issues than anyone else.
Although it may seem that this is a point that's already been pushed enough, I don't think it really has. Many people with whom I converse are reticent to give out the juicy details about just how hilariously messed-up their Thanksgivings are.
Thanksgiving dinners are some of the funniest events a human being can witness if he properly distances himself from the situation. On this day of love and giving of thanks, Mom wakes up early to cook and silently resents everyone else for not helping. Grandma and Grandpa show up complaining about how they forgot their back pills, and Uncle Stuben proceeds to get drunk by noon. You can't make this up.
The overarching point of this is that our society has made it seem that the "normal" families we see on TV actually do exist and that there's something inherently wrong with your family because they don't function like that.
What's even worse (for me at least) is that the modern media have begun to play upon the "no such thing as normal" theme in the content of their programs, yet all of the stories still have a happy ending, or if they don't end happily, they end with some grand cathartic tragedy.
At the end of Thanksgiving Day, no one in your family will die, no one will be kicked or punched and, almost assuredly, you won't all share a smile and realize how amazingly great your family is. In real life, you just hug Grandma goodbye, wait until she's driven away, and then make a snide remark regarding her 20-minute rant about how Obama is a terrorist.
But take solace in this: Everyone else out there, whether they readily admit it or not, goes through the same thing. To reference Jessie Borkan's column from last week, you are not "that crazy person" for noticing that your family functions in very unique and deviant ways.
The best thing you can do is laugh at your family, and if your family is really cool, you can laugh with them at how "messed up" you all really are.
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Grant Beighley is a senior majoring in English. He can be reached at Grant.Beighley@tufts.edu.
