Giving thanks for what we haven't got.

Thanksgiving fast approaches, with an entire holiday season following hard on its heels. Many of us will mark the coming occasions with family celebration—gathering together with our loved ones to enjoy the subtle pleasures of food and conversation. These are the experiences from which greeting cards are made. Adults will exchange stories and laughter while children and pets scamper contentedly. Everyone's bellies will be stuffed from a delicious feast. For one brief moment, we'll experience something close to perfection. At least, that's how it's supposed to turn out...

Even in the happiest of families, holiday gatherings threaten to go horribly awry. Family grudges may simmer below the surface, erupting into a boil at the least expected moment. Our curmudgeonly relatives may serve up side dishes of venom at the banquet table. Liquor might loosen the lips or libidos of adults, unlocking lifetimes of secrets. The spontaneous oddities of children and animals can frustrate our orderly plans. With little or no warning, the holiday cheer can transform in a heartbeat to humiliation or horror.

In last week's Dear Prudence column, a letter writer sought advice for dealing with her unpleasant in-laws over the Thanksgiving weekend. After seven years in the family, her brother-in-law doesn't even welcome her to the table using her correct name. In the spirit of charity, mermaid33 responded with her own, more traumatic, tale of a Thanksgiving gone wrong:

Methinks some perspective is required here. Thanksgiving 1972. I was 9, my brother was 7, my sister 5 and we were on our way with our mom and dad to grandpa's house for Thanksgiving.

I say "grandpa's house" because that's the way it was that year; grandpa and grandma being in the middle of one of three divorces to each other. There was a heightened sense of anticipation and trepidation, as my mother had not seen her father since the last Thanksgiving where everyone was together, sitting at the long table and my grandfather hadn't liked the way my uncle had asked him to pass the mashed potatoes. So, he hurled the bowl through the air in the general direction of my uncle. My mother booked it out of there, hearing on the way out her father ask if my uncle wanted some gravy with that?

It was with this in mind that my parents, especially my stepdad, had reluctantly loaded us up in the Valiant station wagon and made the two hour trip in our best going-out-to-eat clothes. I remember we had gift-wrapped packages with us and the foresight of my mother makes me laugh; that she would instinctively know that she wouldn't be seeing her dad again at Christmas, like this was all my dad was gonna be able to tolerate...

So, quivering from anticipation and the muscle contractions from sitting absolutely, perfectly still on the way there lest the curl fall out of my Indian hair, not to mention the constant monitoring required to ensure that my siblings didn't cross the imaginary line I'd drawn in the upholstery and get more than their fair share of the bench seat, we arrived.

I imagine my grandfather must have seen us pull up to the curb because we were still uncrating ourselves when the front door opened. Down the front walk towards us bounded my grandparents' Dalmatian dog, delighted to see us. In his exuberance, he jumped on my little sister and knocked her down. Having dogs of our own, she was used to this and got right back up unscathed. But my grandfather was not satisfied. He strode down the walk, picked up Denny by the skin on the front of his neck, raised him up to eye level and punched him in the jaw like a man.

My father said, quietly, "Kids, get in the car." We got right back in and drove away without a word. My father didn't even have to say "I told you so" and my mother didn't even need to hear it. Of course, since we had planned on dinner at my grandfather's, there was no Thanksgiving dinner waiting for us at home.

A toast -- To holidays with family that do not involve hurled tableware or animal cruelty! May the worst that befalls you be that someone you only see once a year forgets your name and you have to sit through a child's recital!

We here at Fraywatch join mermaid33 in wishing you a mayhem-free holiday. But, we also know that some of you will inevitably find yourselves gnashing your teeth and wondering how things could possibly go worse. Which is why we'd like to offer you the dark comfort of knowing how much worse things could really be.

In the spirit of one-upmanship, we invite you, dear readers, to submit your real-life stories of disastrous family celebrations to the Fraywatch Fray. Funny, frightening, or just plain sad, we welcome them all. Our gang of editors will select your best entries and feature them next week in this space. In the meantime, we wish you good eating and a happy Thanksgiving. G.A. … 8:50 a.m. PST

Monday, November 19, 2007

If you ever decide to make your living reading internet posts, prepare yourself to reach some dark conclusions about human nature. While there's a lot of brilliant and worthy material in the Fray, many posts are so toxic that just reading them gives one the urge to rinse the eyes with soapy water. In my darker moods, well-meaning optimists reassure me that the internet is a distorted lens for viewing the human condition—that people sheltering behind anonymity express very different views than they'd profess in the public sphere. But, if this argument is true, then one has to wonder about that lynchpin of modern democratic governance—the secret ballot. After all, in their secrecy and insulation from personal accountability the ballot box and the internet are very much alike. If voters are as nasty in the polls as posters can be on the boards, then democratic theory might need a re-think.

Several articles published last week in Slate worked in tandem to generate a perfect swarm of the brain-dead and the bigoted. Pieces on the death penalty, the surging crisis of Iraqi refugees, and the political gaffes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama provoked a tidal wave of response capable of drowning even the most cynical democrat's populist tendencies.

In her piece covering the legal debate about contemporary execution practices, Dahlia Lithwick decries the "carelessness, raw politics, and inertia" of the American death penalty. While there are some sharp responses to be found in the ensuing Fray discussion, the cumulative debate presents a theater of sadism. One can at least recognize the faculty of reason at work in the grim utilitarianism of folks like Atarxian, who support greater cruelty throughout the penal system on the basis of its deterrent value. In one of the debate's most bizarre arguments, jimthecarguy finds inspiration for speedy public stoning in the durability of Jewish culture. Teslarawks speaks with envy of Chinese criminal procedure's efficiency, in which "they march you out of the court room and shoot you in the head with a rifle."