Weird is relative

As a kid of 6, I thought Thanksgiving to be an odd little holiday. No one got any presents. No one got a cake with candles. There were no trees, no multi-colored lights, no Easter egg hunts, bunny rabbits, fireworks, reindeers, or even Santa.

Thanksgiving lacked all of these things, but it still was one of my favorite holidays because it had two things in abundance: Every conceivable kind of dessert a kid could possible hope to eat and a bunch of weird relatives.

Every year we’d have a big meal at our house for Thanksgiving. The food was always fantastic and the relatives that came always provided great entertainment. Not the kids mind you; kids were just kids. It was their parents who were really weird.

Uncle Bud brought his toy poodle, Pumpkin. He said she couldn’t possible be left at home by herself. Dad said that Uncle Bud was a little strange. Don’t know about that. He always was really nice to us, brought us gifts and told us stories of when he worked in the Birmingham steel mills.

Except for during dinnertime, Uncle Bob would sit on the couch with the clear, plastic slip covers and sipped Mom’s special punch. By the end of the evening, he’d be passed out with Pumpkin curled up next to him – both of them snoring. Eventually Dad would call them a cab.

We always picked up Grandma Ryckeley. She lived in a blue two-story house on the other side of town. There were two things I remember about her. She gave the best hugs (other than Mom’s), and Dad really loved her fruit cakes.

As a kid, I didn’t have much use for fruit cakes. Sure they were good for door stops ... and throwing at your brother. But as cake, they lacked one thing. Taste. They always seemed like chewy cardboard to me. Dad said fruit cakes were an acquired taste. He said that about a lot of things. As an adult, I did actually grow to like it.

Grandma Ryckeley made her fruit cakes like most other people’s, but when the cake was finished baking, she’d wrap it in a towel, pour white lighting all over it and let it soak in for a week. Maybe that’s why Dad loved her fruit cakes. And it could also explain why Pumpkin kept running around our house bumping into things. Every Thanksgiving she sure did eat a lot of that fruit we picked off Grandma’s cake.

Grandma and Grandpa Watson were my mom’s folks. They lived in a big brick house in Birmingham, and Uncle Bud lived with them. Unlike The Boy, he never moved out.

The one thing I remember most about Grandma Watson was that she disliked Dad. No, she hated Dad. Whatever he did, she would pick at him. By the end of dinner, Dad’s face would be as red as the candied cherries on the fruit cake.

When she left, Dad would walk around the house mumbling about how she always got his goat. I didn’t like her either. Because of her getting Dad’s goat, I never once saw it.

Uncle Jean and Aunt Betty would fly in from California each Thanksgiving – and with them came four of the most perfect kids in the world. If you asked them, that is. If you asked my dad, they were spoiled little brats. Their dad worked for NASA. He was loaded. Uncle Jean was rich.

Us kids liked them because they brought the coolest toys. We’d spend all of Thanksgiving fighting over whose turn it was to play with what. Pumpkin would run around barking for candied fruit. Grandma Watson would berate Dad. All the while his face would turn from white, to cherry red, then purple. It was the only holiday that came with a tri-colored dad.

The Wife and I are flying to Washington to see her side of the family this Thanksgiving. Her sister’s kids will be there, and I wonder, have I now become the weird relative invited simply for sheer entertainment? If I have, I’ll try not to disappoint.

They have two dogs. So I’ll be bringing along with me one special fruit cake — heavily soaked in a special adult beverage. That is, if I can get it past the security at the airport. In some countries, fruit cake is considered a deadly weapon.