Oh Those Thanksgiving Traditions

My mother and I are the absolute opposite of one another in a million ways.  Well, pretty much in every way except for our wide feet, our complete disinterest in cars and our an unnatural compulsions to buy bed linens and pretty towels.  But that is where the similarities end with us.  For example:

I love volunteering; my mother thinks "God helps those who help themselves."
I could never clean again and be perfectly content, my mother is fanatically clean.  {Seriously and sadly, the smell of bleach and ammonia instantly put me back to my childhood}.
I read all the time, the last thing my mother read was The Thorn Birds (When it came out.  In the 70s).
I love to cook, my mother loathes it. 
I am all about traditions, she hates them.  Hell, we don't even like the same kind of pie.  She likes pumpkin (which to me has the creepiest texture EVER) and I love pecan (chocolate bourbon pecan, to be precise) which she thinks is cloyingly sweet (isn't that the point?  If you want lettuce, eat lettuce.  If you want a diabetic coma of goodness, eat pecan pie). 

However, be that as it may, we did indeed have some Thanksgiving traditions when I was growing up.  Odd though they were, they were ours.

1) Thanksgiving morning Mom would say "you really want to do this big production thing again?"  Mind you, my mother did not cook EVER so Thanksgiving was torment to her.  Not that we had a big meal that took days to cook.  It merely consisted of a turkey breast, mashed potatoes, microwaved green beans and a frozen apple pie (none of liked apple pie but this is what she inevitably bought.  Probably on sale).

2) For Christmas Day we would go to Jack in the Box.  Yes, they were open.  The one off 635 and Ferguson in Dallas.  Yes, it is beyond pathetic but THERE WAS A LINE!  So my brother and I consoled ourselves with the fact that we were not the only loser family out there. 

3) Watching the Cowboys play football on Thanksgiving Day.  My brother would cry and tear down his McDonalds poster of them when they lost.  It was so sad.  Even back then, I was a math geek.  I would silently calculate every way that they could come back (24 points behind?  Easy.  Three touch downs complete with extra points, and a field goal.  Or eight field goals.  Or two touchdowns, two extra points, three field goals and a safety.  Or 12 safeties....).  To this day, my favorite score in football is still the safety.

4) One of us would think that we should say grace and my mother would insist that we were all going to become "Jesus freaks" if we did this. 

Yep, good times at the hacienda growing up...