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| Man v Food |
I really love Thanksgiving. It isn't as stressful as Christmas. It is all about being with family and friends and I have some really good memories that came from this holiday. If Thanksgiving is at my parents it is always a full blown affair. Now that we all live far apart even more so. Graham and I generally try to make it to Mom and Dad's every other year for Thanksgiving and the alternate years for Christmas. While we are there we try and cram in as much family time as possible. And in our family, family time means big dinners. We generally have so many people that we cannot all fit at one table. Generally in situations like these people fight to not have to sit at the kid's table, but once all of us kids grew up we now get upset if we have to sit with the grown ups. This was the case a few years ago. We were having a huge dinner and I was at the grown up table. Now don't get me wrong, I had a wonderful time. I got to sit with my lovely godmother whom I rarely get to see. I always enjoy dining with my aunt's and uncle's too. But something was going on in the other room and I couldn't figure out what it was and it was killing me. Lily and Owen had their own table and the disturbance was not coming from them. The commotion was from the next table over where my brother, and his wife Hye, Vanessa, Jason and his wife Jess, and Liam were sitting. At the time Liam was an extremely picky eater. I wasn't there but I sure the conversation went something like this. One of the "adults" asks Liam why there is only mashed potatoes and turkey on his plate. He says something like that is all he wanted. Then they gang up on him and tell him he should try new things. Then they start in on the "We never had a choice when we were kids. Our parents would make us eat things we didn't like." Liam wasn't budging until somebody, probably Ness, says "I bet he'd eat Brussel sprouts if somebody paid him". Graham threw down the gauntlet. $20. Somebody else up'd the ante to $30. He had to eat 20 bites. Jess had prepared some lovely roasted sprouts which were cut in half. There was much cheering and chanting and he ate them all. When I found out later what had happened I was pretty proud of Liam. Getting my brother to cough up cash like that is next to impossible. I like to tell myself that he learned a valuable life lesson that day. Sure my cousins and and brother were feeding the sense of entitlement that kids have theses days. Won't do anything unless something is in it for them. But really what Liam learned was if you get just the right amount of wine and beer in my family you can make them do anything.
