ClubHooligan.com - Burning it up at both ends

Web posted November 22, 2007

Thanksgiving with the significant other

Amy Gaisford

Cold weather, big meals, huge parades with monstrous balloons, gatherings of friends and family filled with laughs and the potential for high stress - it must be Thanksgiving.

If you are seeing one special person, the potential for high stress probably lies completely in the fact that this person has yet to meet your family and for some reason you decided to introduce him or her to everyone on Thanksgiving. Here's the scene: The two of you pull up to the house where the festivities will be held and for a split second panic sets in - was this such a good idea? Thoughts flash through your mind: What in the world made me think that introducing this person to my family on such a grand scale would be a good idea? Am I really that attached to this relationship that I want the pressure from the family that will be sure to follow the initial meeting? Are we really going to have to sit at the "kid table"?

Well this may actually be what I am thankful for this year: I have never been in this situation. I am honestly not sure if I would ever to do this to a person I truly care about anyway. Especially after I have seen how my family can be (a little intimidating to say the least), and, well, you've all heard about how bad paybacks can be.

On both sides of my family I have cousins close to me in age. Throughout my high school years, I had one cousin in particular who would always bring his latest girlfriend over to meet the family during big holiday dinners. There seemed to be a point over the years when we would end up meeting a new girl each holiday. Some of my other cousins and I just couldn't understand why he felt the need to bring every new girlfriend over. Did he really think she needed to meet the family that much? Were they really that serious?

Let's just say that we did our best to convey the idea that we were "that" family, the one you never wanted to take someone home to meet. I can only imagine how these poor girls felt hearing these ridiculous stories about our family and seeing us act like complete nutcases. After a while my cousins and I liked to think that we were the reason my cousin brought a new girl to each holiday dinner, but I'm sure that just wasn't the case. At least I hope that we were not the cause.

I am waiting until I am completely sure about a guy to take him home to meet the family. For one thing, we would really have to be sure about the relationship because my sister and the rest of my extended family live 3,000 miles away in Illinois. For another thing, he would have to really care about me to appreciate me and my family and our flare for the fun and crazy.