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<\/a><\/p>\nMy mom tells me I had just thrown a temper tantrum before this photo, because my great grandmother had walked past me to kiss my new baby brother.\u00a0 (She always did prefer boys.)\u00a0 My baby brother has kicked off his bootie, which is in my dad\u2019s lap.\u00a0 We all look worn out.\u00a0 Family is exhausting.<\/p>\n
Here is one way my mom was weird.\u00a0 She hated Debby Boone.\u00a0 My mom was a preacher\u2019s wife in Texas, but she\u2019d growl and turn the dial if \u201cYou Light Up My Life\u201d came on the radio, which it did, often, for a decade.\u00a0 When I was about 9 years old, I bought my first album, with Helen Reddy\u2019s \u201cI Am Woman\u201d on it.\u00a0 I still sing that song in the shower, and think of my mom.\u00a0 My mom loved the Pointer Sisters too.\u00a0 We\u2019d sing \u201cWe are Family!\u201d and dance a little.\u00a0 But never Amy Grant.\u00a0\u00a0 My mom has no patience for sap.<\/p>\n
Here is one way my dad was weird.\u00a0 On our annual four hour drive to spend Thanksgiving with his family, we would listen to two cassette recordings.\u00a0 One was \u201cAlice\u2019s Restaurant<\/a>,\u201d by Arlo Guthrie.\u00a0 I think maybe the version we listened to is here, but I am not sure.\u00a0 I think maybe this recording<\/a> has been expurgated.\u00a0 The other cassette recording was of Tom Lehrer songs.\u00a0 The one I remember every Thanksgiving is \u201cNational Brotherhood Week<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 But there is also \u201cPoisoning Pigeons in the Park<\/a>,\u201d and \u201cThe Vatican Rag<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0Preparing ourselves for extended time with one another, and lots of time with my dad\u2019s extended family in Central Texas, required political satire, served slow as molasses (Guthrie), and piquant as olives (Lehrer).<\/p>\n One of my dad\u2019s best friends is a retired Episcopal priest everyone calls \u201cFather Bob.\u201d\u00a0 His son wrote a book called What\u2019s Eating Gilbert Grape<\/i>.\u00a0 He also wrote and directed Pieces of April<\/i><\/a>.\u00a0 It remains one of my favorite holiday movies, ever.\u00a0 Hedges also co-wrote the screenplay to About a Boy<\/i>, which has a scene about love and vulnerability to rival the fox and boy scene<\/a> in The Little Prince<\/i>.\u00a0\u00a0 I think maybe Peter Hedges has a sweet\/bitter relationship to the idea of family.<\/p>\n I am at heart an overly earnest person, more like Debby Boone or Amy Grant than I really want to admit.\u00a0 The Peanuts<\/i> trilogy used to tear me up every year.\u00a0 But I haven\u2019t come anywhere near Charlie Brown and Lucy\u00a0for a while.\u00a0 I\u2019ve needed to calibrate my tears around the holidays, taking one step at a time, moderating grief with irony, political satire, and glimpses of joy during a season I both love and hate.\u00a0 This is my third Thanksgiving since my marriage of 21 years ended.\u00a0 I am able to think about watching Peanuts<\/i> again, feeling safe in nostalgia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My parents look normal, but they were weird.\u00a0 Here they are, looking a little weird: My mom tells me I had just thrown a temper tantrum before this photo, because my great grandmother had walked past me to kiss my new baby brother.\u00a0 (She always did prefer boys.)\u00a0 My baby brother has kicked off his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[181,180],"class_list":["post-1548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-family","tag-holidays"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7EotM-oY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1550,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions\/1550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}