We're hosting the family Thanksgiving at our house this year. You'd think that would be be a pretty straightforward statement. Not really that much to think about. Cook a little turkey, bake a little pie, watch a little football. The problem is that the actual definition of "family" on my side of the family is pretty amorphous, and depending on the circumstances can stretch to cover pets, friends, and the pets of friends. It drives the accountant wife up a wall, since she can never tell whether she is to prepare herself for a quiet evening with a small circle of relatives, or for something approaching the size of a Catholic wedding party.

I remember a time, back when we were still kids, where the youngest son of the family up the street just "happened" to drop by every night about dinner time. He'd knock on the door, say something like "Ya'll come outside when you're done." We'd ask if he'd eaten yet, and he'd say "no", even though we found out later that wasn't true, and we'd pull up a chair and he'd eat dinner. Eventually Mom just started setting a place for him.

In case you're wondering, he wasn't poor, or abused, or anything like that. He just wanted two dinners.

We've had a "family" beach trip the past two years. This year, the "family" beach trip included a newlywed cousin and his dog and his new wife and their two friends whom we had never met, all of whom showed up the day before we were due to leave. I cooked them scrambled eggs and made sure they had enough beer. Dad regaled them with a story from his childhood where he conned a man into buying a bag of turds for a dime and the wife's head popped off and flew around the room, shrieking imprecations at the heavens.

Well no, not really. It was a close thing, though. Her experience at the cousin's wedding a few months previous certainly didn't help. It was hours away, and held on Ngnat's 2nd birthday weekend, and the directions were vague and imprecise, and they called that the day before the rehearsal dinner to see if we were coming to the rehearsal dinner, even though our invitation had been "lost", and the bride didn't stop by our table to say "Thank you for coming" at the reception, a practice which is apparently de rigueur, which I was unaware of although I had observed it numerous times before;

"At every single wedding I've taken you to." I was informed.

Are they coming to Thanksgiving? Well, they might. We don't know. We haven't heard from the cousin's parents in a week, after they wrote to tell us that they were probably coming, after they had their own dinner at a somewhat unspecified time in a city two hours away. I wrote back at the better half's behest to make sure the dog at least stayed two hours away, and since then there has been silence.