The Holidays

Having been raised in the US, my family was adopted into the celebration of Thanksgiving every years, my grandmother being a driving force behind the "Americanise the World" campaign of certain ultra-Americans (this is my dad's mother).

I greatly prefer spending the holidays (any holidays) with my mother's side of the family, simply because they are a much more agreeable and pleasant lot. My dad's side is polluted with rambunctious little children and disagreeable old folks. Of course, I'm not saying they're all bad. I love my Grand- Aunt and my Uncle's wife, but my Uncle and his kids are rather obnoxious. My dad's other brother is a military man, meaning he's conservative, right-wing (but conservative implies that), Bush-loving (that disgusts me), and all of this has been passed on to his kids. His kids are wonderful. I love my cousins. However, whenever politics of any sort are raised in their presence, things turn sour on both sides.
My grandma, too. She's a complete establishmentarian: not acknowledging the faults of America until they're too great to ignore, then acknowledging the downfalls, but stating that there is simply nothing to do to change them.

My politics and hers clash horribly, as do my politics with quite a few people. My religious beliefs, if voiced aloud in the presence of my father's family would be sure to see me disowned and dis-inherited.

So clearly, the way to go is spend the holidays (all of them) with my mum's family

On her side....
Her father is my granddad. He's about the most Scottish person you could find, other than the fact that he's dropped his accent. His daughters, my mother and aunt, are separated by a gap of five years, and their children's ages vary accordingly. My aunt on my mother's side is agreeable and funny, always happy and smiling. She has three kids and a new husband, who is the most wonderful person who could have entered our family. Her kids are great, too, although subject to Portland(Oregon)'s sub-culture of not really caring about academics and positively filling up their faces with ornaments of various types (mostly lip, ear, and tongue rings). Oh, I forgot to mention that her kids follow the following order: boy, girl, boy. The younger two have vague plans for their lives, while the eldest really has none. Still, they're great cousins.

So really what I'm trying to say is that although I've landed with a Thanksgiving with the paternal relatives, I'm going to try and try to get my mother to abandon plans for holding it at her house. If that happens, my xbox and collection of old video games are sure to be destroyed before the turkey is carved.