"grand"mothers during holidays

so i thought about writing about the joys and the anti-joys of the holiday season, but decided just to stick with the focused topic of my grandmothers. these stories are doozies, and i hope that it gives y'all a sneak peak into the wackiness of my family.

nutty thanksgiving moment: so my cousin is getting married in may and asked my dad to do the wedding (he's a pastor). he said no - he has a policy that he won't do family weddings because he can't be objective enough during pre-marriage counseling. my cousin understands. no hard feelings. UNTIL my grandmother (dad's mom) and my aunt (dad's sister) get to talking. and what do they do? call and gripe at my mother about how awful it is that my dad won't do the wedding and how could he do this to them and how they won't even tell my uncle about it because they know he would fly off the handle and how my cousin is sooo upset about it. so, my dad calls my cousin and gives in and says he'll do the wedding. and he finds out that my cousin didn't know this was going on, and was never upset about anything. thanks grandma. (by the way, we also were told that it was going to be nice not to have my immediate family at the big family thanksgiving dinner because they would not have to have turkey since none of them liked turkey anyway- apparently for all of these years they've made a turkey just for my parents, sister, and i - who knew?)

funny thanksgiving moment: see my blog post with my grandmother's (mom's mom) recreated drawings.

scary Christmas moment: my greatgrandmother (dad's grandma) lives in a nursing home in the town i was born in (about 15 minutes from the town i claim as my hometown). apparently two days before Christmas she tells my aunt that my dad's having an affair with a lady that's been friends with our family for a long time, who's also the hospice nurse who's been calling on my greatgrandmother. she's apparently told this lie to other people in the nursing home. well, to make a long story shorter, my dad had to go in and confront my greatgrandmother about it. she eventually admitted to making the whole thing up, and hopefully the rumor won't continue to circulate like small town rumors can. the family was so irritated with her that apparently, she was purposefully left out of the Christmas day activities with her sons, daughters, and grandchildren.

side story from long ago: i found out from my mom that this greatgrandmother (mentioned above) has quite the potty mouth. i guess that not long after my mom and dad got married, my dad's cousin backed out on her wedding day. another one of his cousins was to be married soon, and my mom made the mistake of commenting to my dad's aunt, "you don't think she would back out on her wedding too do you?" well, this got around to my great-grandmother (no one keeps their mouth shut in my family apparently) and she cussed my mom up one side and down the other. my mom says she's never been cussed at by anyone like she was from my greatgrandmother (there was lots of the f word, with other choice wordage). this happened over 25 years ago and to this day, my mom has not been in a room alone with my greatgrandmother.

happy holiday story: my other living greatgrandmother (mom's grandma - who's still to this day one of the wisest people i know) is turning 104 on january 1st. happy birthday grandma! she has not cussed out anyone in my family to my knowledge, and her mind is still so sharp that each and every one of her children, grandchildren, greatgrandchildren, and greatgreatgrandchildren gets a birthday card on his/her birthday. fun story about her - i found out in an interview i did with her last year that she dated someone while she was engaged to my grandfather - with his permission! grandpa was also the 4th man to propose marriage to her - she must have been quite a catch :)

well, my family has one last Christmas celebration this evening (on my dad's side none-the-less) so we'll see what stories unfold there. my, this is long, and there's many more stories i could tell. i have nothing else better to do in oxford, kansas than sit at the computer so at least this ate up some time! what did i do to pass the time when i lived here for 7 years? oh, that's right - i lost weight by playing volleyball, cheerleading, and making out with my boyfriend - ah how times have changed!