Rituals for day after Thanksgiving keep changing

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hkronmueller

There are a lot of relaxing ways for families to spend the day after Thanksgiving.

My family doesn't engage in any of them.

One word best describes the Kronmueller Day-After-Thanksgiving ritual: Chaotic.

I remember the ritual when my sisters and I were young. Clearly the goal was to hit as many toy stores as possible before the sun went down.

My sisters and I each owned about five Cabbage Patch Kids, as was the case with most girls back then. With Christmas coming, it was time to expand our little patch of children into a full-blown garden.

On our way to the store, with the three of us strapped in the back seat, Dad would look back and say, "Isn't five enough?"

Had I been as witty back then as am I now, I would have said something along the lines of, "Aren't three football games in one day enough?" Because I was 5 years old, the only intelligent thing I could think to say was, "No! I need more!"

At the entrance to the store, the madness would begin. You see, being that there were three of us, Mom insisted we all get the same doll so we wouldn't fight about them later. For the sprint to the shelves, she would grab Stacey and me. Jenn, being the oldest, would be left to fend for herself.

I don't remember Dad ever being a part of the actual process of obtaining the dolls. I imagine there was a sort of waiting room, or observation chamber, where fathers gathered to watch their loved ones trample each other for the chance to get their hands on the sacred Cabbage Patch Kids.

As the doors opened, Mom took off as if she were running a marathon and trying to get out ahead of the pack. Stacey and I held on for dear life, for fear that if we let go of Mom's arm we would be stomped to death by the other mothers.

When we made it to the shelves, in one fell swoop Mom grabbed three of the same dolls off the shelf and thrust them into our arms. Before we knew it, we were in the checkout line.

Over the years, our ritual adapted to meet the needs of our aging family.

When we entered our teenage years, we were no longer interested in toys, but in clothes. And that meant one thing -- hours of trying on every outfit in every store.

Dad refused to wander from store to store with us, so for at least five hours while we drifted around the mall he stayed in the Christian bookstore catching up on his reading.

I'd bet that over the years he could have read the Bible from front to back at least twice waiting for us to finish shopping.

This year we had to adapt our ritual yet again.

Now that there's a baby in the family, it restricts the amount of hours we can spend out and about, so instead of sifting through the mall crowds, we decided to brave the portrait studio crowds.

At 11 a.m. our little family filed into the studio.

We quickly learned the decision to get a family picture taken is one that should not be made lightly. There are many factors that should be worked out ahead of time, factors that we neglected to address.

The first was that four of the six adults wear glasses.

Every time the camera girl took the picture, she said, "Uh-oh. There's a glare. Let's try it again."

And of course, after the glare problem was taken care of, the new task became getting Ryan, my 9-month-old nephew, to smile. All he wanted to do was take a nap.

After nearly 15 minutes of the camera girl's trusty assistant waiving a large, plush frog in Ryan's face and uttering phrases like, "A poo-poo-poo, smile Ryan," in a high-pitched voice certain to attract small furry animals, we were all ready for a nap. Instead, we decided to go with whatever look Ryan felt like giving us.

No matter how we spend our day after Thanksgiving, it always seems to turn out a little crazy. I wonder what we'll do next year.

Heather Kronmueller is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.