The Weekly Fare . . . December 4 , 2002

The Perfect Family

Somewhere, they must be out there - the perfect family that assembles every year for the perfect Thanksgiving. Grandmother cooks the turkey and bakes pies, Grandad chops wood and preps the fire... There is a warm glow about them as they happily prepare for the long awaited visit of their three sons, one daughter (accompanying spouses) and fifteen grandchildren. Their anticipation is like that of long-separated relatives about to meet on some distant shore... The ghost of Norman Rockwell paints furiously in the corner...

Yeah, well, maybe so. But not around here.

Thanksgiving at "our house" (my Mom and Dad's) is a raging free-for-all. My family is a family of very many small children - thanks mostly to my sister and me (and accompanying spouses) who somehow found a way between us to have eight children over the last nine years. (There are fifteen over sixteen years total.) These children are loved and wanted, mind you, but they are nevertheless small children capable of bringing more than enough life to the darkest morgue. "Nanna and Grandad's place is anything but, and the resulting carnival that carries forth from their abode each November would rattle the bones of Mother Goose herself.

A New York bachelor would lose it completely.

My Dad (who is not a New York bachelor and never was) just about does as well.

Pop used to be pretty good about handling massive frontal assaults on his personal property with the grace and aplomb of a diplomat. But once his expanding grandparental brood reached critical mass (somewhere around number twelve) he began to show signs of "slight tension."

"Stuart, are you sure he can balance on that rail like that? If he falls he's going to crush those antique... ANNE! WATCH OUT FOR THAT...!!!"

In a distant corner of the room two candlesticks, five collectable knick-knacks and seventeen picture frames come crashing to the ground, compliments of baby Roscoe who has discovered that pulling on a table cloth can lead to quite the unexpected conflagration of shiny objects.

"I'VE GOT IT... I"VE GOT IT!" bellows Pop, as he crosses the room.

That's the worst part. They never let you clean it up. I'm not sure whether they just don't trust you to handle it correctly or they simply want you to feel more guilty. Probably both.

This year, Dad's biggest worry (and rightfully so) seemed to be the certainty that someone was going to have a cataclysmic spill. I listened over the course of the first two hours of our "celebration" as he herded and cajoled both the younger and elder children of our tribe to "please be careful and keep the drinks in the kitchen if at all possible."

That is, of course, about as possible as pouring a bowl of rice krispies on the Space Shuttle. Kids and the stuff they consume tend to wander a bit - like to every part of the house. But he was barking commands nevertheless, doing his darndest to keep the one prize oriental carpet in their living room from taking a hit. As it turned out, he did a pretty good job... Until grandchild number eleven caught his foot on the shoe of number five and sent his Sunny Delight orange drink cartwheeling like an out-of-control missile over... yes, you guessed it - the one carpet Grandad was struggling to protect.

Lucky for Uncle Bob and me, who were "on the scene," we were able to clean it up while Pop was busy with some other calamity in the kitchen (a supremely well-executed distraction on the part of sister Anne who created a masterful diversion at the perfect time). I never heard exactly what happened, but the child in the kitchen sure was letting it rip. But not as much as number eleven would have if Pop had seen that juice spill. Young Roscoe probably doesn't know it yet, but it's likely not the last time he'll take the grenade for older brother Lee.

My family is also a family of great opinion. Very little of it reserved. We Revercombs have a pension for speaking our minds and we've become quite good at it. If dinner table conversations at our house while growing up sometimes sounded like General District Court, then Thanksgiving dinner is akin to the British House of Lords.

"I SAY... HERE, HERE... WHAT HE SAID ABOUT THOSE DURN SOCCER TOURNAMENTS... (Punctuated by sounds of gentlemanly support as well as condemnation), I'D NEVER DRIVE MY CHILDREN ALL OVER THE STATE TO THOSE THINGS..."

"JUST WAIT UNTIL YOUR CHILDREN WANT TO DO IT..." (Further rabble and snorts.)

"YEAH? WELL THERE'S NO WAY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH I'D..."

We usually "talk" about pretty important stuff like that.

And every now and then, we get REALLY cheezy, and say something to our spouse like, "You know, I just love so-and-so, if only she wouldn't ..."

Yup. Just like you and your family we judge each other. Can't help it. We're family.

But, in the end, I'd like to think we're all armed pretty heavily with the power of forgiveness, and like those rice krispies in the Space Shuttle, I hope it's flyin' all over the place. It needs to, and it better be - because as family members we're especially close to each other and therefore far too familiar with one another's shortcomings and less than perfect tendencies. If the honor among thieves comes from the knowledge that none of them are particularly perfect and that there really isn't anything to hide, perhaps the honor among family members is in the "knowing" as well... brought to something much greater by the forgiveness granted in the unconditional love and loyalty that only a family can have.

We owe such forgiveness to everyone, of course. But especially our families - particularly during the tighter space and quickening pace that so often accompanies "the holidays."

The perfect family?

No such thing. Just families that are really good at giving and receiving... forgiveness.

Celebrate it!