{"id":3856,"date":"2004-12-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=3856"},"modified":"2017-08-31T21:34:14","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T04:34:14","slug":"family-ways-sometimes-leave-a-lot-to-be-desired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=3856","title":{"rendered":"Family ways sometimes leave a lot to be desired"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

Photo by luist & his inner pig, Flickr.com.<\/p><\/div>\n

Tribal customs can be a mystery to outsiders. Are you fine with that?<\/h4>\n

\u201cFeliz Navidad,\u201d sang those sweet, high-pitched voices of the fourth and fifth grade children.
\n\u201cI want to wish you a Peaceful Solstice. I want to wish you a Happy Hanukkah. I want to wish you a Joyful Kwanza. I want to wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart.\u201d
\nIt was the most politically correct holiday concert I\u2019d ever seen.
\nIf only my own holiday rituals could be so inclusive.
\nThere\u2019s one very important fact about marriage that gets lost in the sea of white silk and perfect place settings that all of those bridal magazines are so enamored with.
\nYou don\u2019t just marry a man; you marry an entire family.
\nWith that family comes decades worth of holiday rituals that are guaranteed to be different than your own.
\nAnd let\u2019s be honest here, when it comes to holiday celebrations, different isn\u2019t just different — it\u2019s plain wrong.
\nSo after we\u2019ve cleaned up all of that wrapping paper and eaten our last bite of Christmas turkey and we pull out a deck of cards this year, I\u2019ll have to ask, once again: \u201cAre we playing Dinaberg or Klobucher rules?\u201d Because Klobucher rules are weird. It\u2019s like they actually read the directions or something. And they don\u2019t cheat, which I take as an affront to every thing my father ever taught me.
\nI love my husband\u2019s family, but sometimes when I\u2019m with them I feel like I\u2019m an anthropologist digging through exotic terrain.
\nI should have known I was in for trouble when we were first dating and my future husband took me out for a lovely birthday dinner. The food was fabulous. He\u2019d invited only my favorite friends and bought me that perfect pair of earrings I had slyly hinted that I wanted.
\nIt was when he took me home that the trouble began.
\nThere was no cake.
\nNo cake.
\nNot just no chocolate cake, but no cake whatsoever.
\n\u201cBut we had Cr\u00e8me Brulee at the restaurant,\u201d he protested, like that had anything to do with my missing birthday cake.
\nHe didn\u2019t understand. Birthdays are a big deal in my family. They last at least a month (several months in my mother\u2019s case), with both family and friend versions of the celebration.
\nThe specifics may vary a little from year to year, but one thing doesn\u2019t. There is always cake.
\nAnd by the way, the proper way to figure out birthday candles is your age plus \u201cone to grow on.\u201d This is science.
\n\u201cA little more is always better\u201d is my family\u2019s philosophy.
\nMy husband comes from a mother who fed four growing kids on two Chinese dinners from Ming-ons.
\nI, on the other hand, come from a Jewish mother.
\nSo I know that if, God forbid, you have a party and there aren\u2019t leftovers for at least a week, you didn\u2019t make enough food.
\nIt\u2019s enough to make you feel guilty for a year.
\nAnd if you feel guilty about something you have to talk about it, right?
\nIn my family you have to talk about everything. And talk, and talk, and talk \u2026 until you\u2019re so tired of talking you forgot what you were talking about.
\nThen you can talk about that.
\nMy husband\u2019s family doesn\u2019t get the whole talking thing. Mostly they\u2019re \u201cjust fine\u201d with just about everything.
\nBut how do they really feel? We\u2019ll never know. And that\u2019s \u201cjust fine\u201d with them.
\nI, for one, have never been \u201cjust fine\u201d about anything in my life.
\nI certainly wasn\u2019t \u201cjust fine\u201d that one year we had Thanksgiving dinner at my ex-Uncle\u2019s house. Sure they had turkey and a killer game of Pictionary but there were no mashed potatoes.
\nThat\u2019s right. Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes.
\nCan you imagine such a thing? No wonder he\u2019s an ex-Uncle.
\nWhich is why my sister and I spent the latter part of that evening driving around in search of mashed potatoes. It simply wouldn\u2019t have been Thanksgiving without them.
\nAnd when we finally found them at a Thai restaurant they were the most delicious potatoes we\u2019d ever tasted.
\nKind of like that gigantic flourless chocolate cake the year after my husband didn\u2019t buy me a cake.
\n\u201cAs if I\u2019d ever forget again,\u201d he barked.
\n\u201cSee, that\u2019s why we talked about it so much honey,\u201d I mentioned for about the 12th time that year.
\n\u201cFine,\u201d he said. \u201cJust fine.\u201d
\n=
\nWhen Leslie is not studying the tribal customs of her in-laws, she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Originally published in\u00a0South Coast Beacon on December 23, 2004.<\/a><\/p>\n

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