Thanksgiving Day With My Family Is An All Out Electronics War

shutterstock_89332927I know we’re supposed to be grateful and eat a nice gracious dinner together later, but when you get me, my husband, my parents, my brother and his wife and our combined four children in one space one thing is for sure — there will be serious fights over electronics.

You would think that we each live alone in the quiet and solitude the way my family goes insane over the sight of the pretty colors and lights of electronic devises at Thanksgiving.  And for some reason it’s only THIS holiday that we run into problems.  There are never fights over the TV/XBox/iPads on Labor Day. And Christmas I guess we’re just too busy with our own new toys.  But Thanksgiving is a struggle that includes everyone but my mother.  She’s too busy in the kitchen cooking all day not in a 1950s housewife way, but in the way that she’s the captain of cooking and we don’t get in her way.  So the rest of us are left to our own devices, so to speak.

The TV is the site of the greatest conflict on Thanksgiving Day.  My husband, an avid sports fan and someone who can’t even comprehend turkey without tight-ends, will fight for his football.  Sadly, he is fighting a losing battle since my siblings and I grew up in a non-sports home.  We enjoy baseball but aren’t fanatical and that’s the end of it.  Football?  Um, never.  Instead, my parents’ house is a video game mecca and always has been.  From the Super Mario Brothers of the ’80s to Grand Theft Auto of today, my two brothers and father will vie for their favorite games and hog the controller as much as possible today.  My son may actually relinquish an iPad just to watch the car chases on the large screen TV.

I said MIGHT.

Because the electronics wars don’t end with the adults.  You might think the adorable cherubs that are our children would be above this kind of thing (or too young for it maybe) but you’d be wrong.  We don’t own and iPhones or iPads so grandma and grandpas house is a treasure with both.  The problem?  Three iPad obsessed children with not as many devices to go around.  Of course we teach them to take turns and share with their siblings and cousins, but there’s only so much they can learn without watching the adults bicker over the television and wonder why they have to share when their parents don’t know how.

When I finally get sick of reading, writing for Mommyish and picking at my mother’s cooking, I will argue that we should actually watch some GD holiday programming on cable.  My father’s nostalgia will kick in and we will take over the 50 inch screen with our absolute favorite March of The Wooden Soldiers.  In black and white, of course, since the colorized version is horrid.  This is the first year I think my son might be into the movie and I’m so excited.  Those Wooden Soldiers are a staple of my every single Thanksgiving memory from my toddler years to my having a toddler years and it’s one I hold dear.

Thanksgiving isn’t my favorite holiday, but it’s certainly grown on me every year I’ve been married, since it’s my husband’s favorite.  And now every year with children, I look forward to the new ways their participation will add to our old traditions.

The holiday season has officially begun.  Enjoy!

(photo: Bombaert Patrick/Shutterstock)

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