A mother. A daughter. A topic.
Topic: What food best describes your family?
{ Topic submitted by A. Mann }
Cindy Thinks
Ally Thinks
Nuts. A Big Pile of Mixed Nuts.
Anyone who has had the absolute pleasure of meeting my family (and I’m talking my immediate as well as my ever growing extended family) would have to agree that they are all nuts.
But what family isn’t?
We’re not a big family. My grandparents had three girls and each of them only had two kids each. So we were manageable in size. But that just exemplified the nuttiness of each individual.
Way before I was born, my dad decided to take my mom away from the rest of her nutty family in the hopes (I believe) of gaining some sanity. They moved more than 2,000 miles from the closest nut, but it didn’t work.
The nuttiness seeped through.
But as a kid, I loved it. I loved the way we would all get together for family gatherings and everyone talked at the same time, yet were able to hear the juiciest details from the other conversations.
I loved the way the older generation would tell the same family stories over and over and over again as if they were telling them for the first time. And when the stories got too many to remember…they assigned numbers to them and would shout out “number 23!” or 48 or 51…and everyone would laugh hysterically.
I loved the way we would spend hours on end trying to decide which restaurant to go to…and always ended up at the exact same place each time we visited.
And, I loved the way each person had their own unique nutty quality about them that we would discuss openly and exploit whenever possible.
Now I feel like I’ve created my own little nutty family that’s grown into a hodge podge of family members and close friends, with its own little mixed up nutty combinations.
There’s our nuclear family, my extended (well documented) nutty family, Brian’s family -which added a whole new breed of nuts to the mix, Matthew’s wonderfully nutso family, and our combined friends who quite literally could keep mental health professionals busy for a lifetime.
But when you put them all together in one big pile…you get a richly diverse mix that feeds me every day of the week…and nourishes my soul. And I don’t know what I’d do without that.
Because it’s the week of Thanksgiving, I’m going to say my most favorite Thanksgiving food EVER.
Mashed sweet potatoes with melted mini marshmallows.
(It’s not just my favorite because it’s DELICIOUS, but also because it’s pretty much the only time it’s totally acceptable to put marshmallows on your veggies.)
How does this awesome concoction describe my family?
First of all: it’s a little odd. I mean MARSHMALLOWS? On POTATOES? It’s weird. It makes some people tilt their head to the side and raise their eyebrows and shake their heads…
(I just can’t be friends with these people.)
My family is the same way. We’re wonderfully – awesomely – weird. We freak people out. We make people drop their jaws. We get ourselves a whole lot of raised eyebrows.
(And not just when we explain the whole #divorcedkidneys extravaganza.)
And I love us for that, just like I love the sweet potatoes and marshmallows.
Secondly, the sweet potatoes and marshmallows make me happy. I mean, how could they NOT?? They taste yummy, they’re pretty, and I can convince myself that I’m being healthy because sweet potatoes are really, really good for you.
(Right?)
My family makes me happy. We laugh and smile and have a great time.
(They’re also really pretty.)
And we’re good for each other.
Really, really good for each other.
Finally, sweet potatoes and marshmallows are special. You don’t get to have them all the time.
(Well, I guess you could eat them more often, but you don’t get a free pass from judgment like you do on Thanksgiving.)
(Which is kind of sad… but also kind of good… you know, health wise.)
(ANYWAY.)
Even though I do get to be with my (immediate) family whenever I want, they’re still incredibly special.
We’re totally unique.
We’re not like any other family I know.
My family is full of really good people covered in sweet, gooey goodness.
(I mean that in the best possible way.)
And that? Is extraordinarily special.
