This summer saw us celebrating my parents' 50th anniversary. Their anniversary was in July, but since Tristan left for Europe that day, they pushed the celebration to early August. There was, of course, lots of drama and phone calls and stress and insanity leading up to the event, but really, I'll skip most of that and give you just the highlights.
As a friend said "Honey, you're saner than you have a right to be...."
I designed the invitations for this shindig. I made 6 different ones, in various styles and colors, including a joking one that said "50 years ago they got hooked," complete with a fish and a fish hook. Sadly, that was NOT the one they chose. There were issues with the colors and why does it look like it's going off the page? And, and, and....but all in all, that part went pretty well.
Except, see, mom wasn't hosting her own party. That would be rude. But a note about not bringing gifts was NOT rude and HAD to be on the invitation, despite my being the "hostess" and not wanting it there. *sigh* I put it in tiny print at the bottom.
Oh, and the wording....."Mom and Dad appreciate your presence and/or your cards and good wishes. They request no other gifts please." So, at least it was coming from THEM, but we had to have the "and/or" because otherwise people might feel obligated or pressured to come and we wouldn't want that.
*sigh*
Then the RSVPs. My sister and I had already agreed to have just ONE of us handle those--me--for fear of miscommunication and lost RSVPs, double RSVPs and the like. It just makes sense, right? Well, mom got all worried that Sis would be upset that I was handling it. Like we never talk to each other.
As it was, I forgot to put a few people on my list and a few RSVP'd to her rather than me!
*sigh*
So, people started calling and emailing to let me know they were coming, or not. And then the out of town relatives decided they were coming.
And, as my sister said, "the crazy train left the station!"
See, it never entered my mother's head that people would actually TRAVEL for this.
I kid you not, she never imagined that my aunts and uncles would want to be there.
She really and truly never thought they'd come.
This led to dozens of phone calls about who was staying where and which hotels to direct them to and on and on and on. And, of course, since *I* was hosting but I don't live there anymore so I didn't have all the information, I was supposed to play this ridiculous telephone game! Thankfully, that took care of itself because my aunts and uncles called my parents.
But, see, my parents live about 10 miles out of a small town. A small university town. Which is 10 miles from another small university town. These two towns are so small that the universities actively work together to coordinate events like Mom's/Dad's weekend, Homecoming, rivalry games, graduation, move-in weekends, and the like because there is not enough hotel space in these two towns to accommodate out of town folks if they didn't.
And this particular weekend was move-in weekend for one of those universities. So all the hotels were full to bursting.
PANIC!!!!!
Or not. LOL!
Sister lives in a bit larger town about 30 miles down the road. So that's where lots of aunts and uncles stayed instead. That's also where we wound up having several meals, but I'm getting ahead of myself.....
Relatives. I love them. I'm thrilled that so many of them were able to come. I saw folks I hadn't seen in over a decade. But now we have to PLAN things. The reception was from 2-5. And then we had to have dinner at 7:00 and a brunch the next day at 10. At first mom wanted all of these at the same place and got rather testy when I suggested perhaps another venue might work.
Eventually, with everyone staying in the farther town, we moved the dinner and brunch to that farther town. My family took a hotel room for Saturday night so that we could give our kids an escape route. They'd been on their best behavior, essentially being shown off like China dolls, all through the reception, and now we're supposed to go to dinner with 25 of my closest relatives. MY relatives. But these are strangers to my children.
So, after dinner was over and we're all chatting away, I handed the keys to Tristan and he took his sisters back to the hotel to swim and watch movies and such. When I had mentioned that they might do this, mom got pretty irritated, but I finally decided that I was just going to ignore her irritation and take care of my family myself.
And now I have to go back to cover a few things......
Candy Boxes. Oh good heavens! Mom found these fun gold boxes so she bought them and put them together to give out as favors. She put Hershey's Nuggets in them, the ones wrapped in gold, of course. And then got a bit irritated because my sister doesn't like chocolate, and chocolate doesn't like me, so neither of us eat it. Okay, whatever, there will be 70 other people at the party to enjoy the goodies.
Mom wanted these tied with teal ribbon to match her wedding color. Okay great.
But this is my mother we're talking about, so it's never that simple.
Sis and I were tying them just like you would a package, with a little twist on the bottom, and we were whipping through them. Mom HATED that. "But there's a twist on the bottom! Let me show you how to do it RIGHT!"
Why does it matter mom?
Because WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK?
My sister says "They'll think 'Oh how cute! CANDY!' They won't think 'Oh my goodness! I can't eat this yummy chocolate because the ribbon was tied wrong!'"
Gotta love my sister.
And later that evening, sister commented that she was glad we'd left the finished favors at the church because mom would've spent that evening "fixing" them.
The Reception. It went really well, mostly. We ran out of some of the food and Mom wasn't happy that some of the cake wasn't cut, etc, but no one really noticed. And if they did, they were too polite to say so.
Setting up for the reception was quite the exercise in patience. Mom had rounded up lots of photos of them when they were young, wedding pictures, photos of us as children, our weddings, our kids, etc. But then she had a right fit because the photos were all different sizes and such. She had to re-frame Sister's wedding photo because it was matted and therefore larger than mine and what would people think?
Read that again.
This is what goes on in my mother's head.
At first, I thought she was worried that Sister and I would interpret things that way, so I made a joke about knowing she always loved Sister best.
But no.
She was worried that her FRIENDS AND FAMILY would see photos and decide that she favored one or the other of us and/or our children based on the size of the photographs and frames.
Really.
I told her she had a shallow bunch of friends who weren't worth worrying about.
Mom re-framed more pictures.
*sigh*
Good child/bad child. Growing up, I was the "good" one and sister was the "bad" child. Now, my parents never outright said these things, but it was there. I was a rule-follower and Sister would ask Why? and test the limits. I did well in school. It came naturally to me. Sister's brain is wired differently. She learns differently and so she struggled. I would buy the cheap thing, even when I wanted something else, where Sister would buy the one she really WANTED. There are things about her personality that I truly envied and now that we're adults, I emulate her in many ways (while still following the rules, of course! :-D)
This sort of thing is damaging to both children. Those expectations HURT. Sister stayed married to a jerk for an extra year because she didn't want to be "the family F* up" again. I grew into persistent and paralyzing perfectionism. And it could have destroyed our relationship.
But we've worked our tails off, separately and together, to move beyond that. We love and appreciate each other for our differences. She's my biggest fan and cheerleader and the first to tell me I'm being an idiot. She'll often say "If that's what you want to do, go for it! What's holding you back?"
I adore her.
But it appears that Mom is still casting us in those roles. Everywhere we were supposed to be, Mom would chastise Sister about being on time. She would tell her what time to leave and "don't be late," while commenting to me that Sister is *always* late.
Guess who was late?
Yep. Mom (and Dad).
Except for the time she made us an hour early.
*sigh*
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