I’m bringing two of my friends to my family’s Thanksgiving dinner this year. I invited them because they just moved here this summer from across the country, and they don’t have the money to fly home for thanksgiving.
I’m a little apprehensive about this. I’m glad my friends are coming. I’m glad they have somewhere to go. And while I haven’t known them for very long, they are both wonderful people who I am proud to call my friends.
What I’m worried about is my family. I love my family, and they mean well, which probably means I’ve lucked out, as families go. But I still can’t help but be embarrassed by them. My extended family, I mean. My grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. It’s just that they all have such a radically different worldview than me, and seem to buy into the consumer lifestyle whole-heartedly, with even more devotion than my parents.
Walking into their houses with their overbearing televisions as the centerpieces of their design-magazine living rooms, I feel out of place and thrust into a different world, one only hours from my own.
I know my friends will understand. They won’t judge me, and I’m sure they won’t judge my family as harshly as I do. That’s not really what I’m worried about though either. Really, I think I just don’t want my friends to see how uncomfortable I am around my own family.
(Above: Papercut I made last year, and just took home this week.)
