Notes on Pop Culture: Thanksgiving Dinner Dysfunction, 'Key' Potter Film Series Moments, 'Red Riding Hood' Trailer (New 'Twilight?')

Thanksgiving Dinner Dysfunction: For the past several years on parenting blogs for which I’ve written, I’ve created and posted a Dysfunctional Family Bingo Card, in whose boxes I inputted various horrible scenarios which you’d never want to occur at your Thanksgiving dinner.

This year, however, instead of a new Bingo card, I’ve created a snarky quiz in which I offer a series of awkward Thanksgiving dinner scenarios, including one inspired by the Betty Draper-Sally Draper gagging on the sweet potatoes scene from the season four premiere of Mad Men.  You're asked to select the response which, to you, represents the best reaction to the situation, based on how dysfunctional you like your family gatherings to be, which may depend on how much wine you've had. Here’s my Mad Men-inspired question:

The hostess of the dinner, who made all the food, loudly observes, for all the diners to hear, that your 8-year-old nephew doesn’t have any yams on his plate. “What, you don’t like my yams?” she asks from the other side of the table. “Why don’t you try some? They’re really good.”

a) Your sister-in-law frowns, then says, “Sure he likes them, don’t you Tommy?” Then she shovels some into his mouth as he protests and gags.

b) Your sister-in-law says, “Thanks for asking, but he’s not a fan of yams. He loves your cranberry sauce though.”

c) “That’s right!” your brother bellows, “smart boy! Just like his dad. NO ONE likes yams.”

Betty chose option A at her first Thanksgiving at her new mother-in-law's home, followed by dragging her daughter out of the room and pinching her.



‘Key’ Harry Potter Film Series Moments: In anticipation of this week’s release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (it’s getting good reviews, including an A- from Entertainment Weekly), The Daily Beast has posted what it describes as 13 “key” moments from the movie series. Among those memorable movie scenes: Harry vs Quirrell/Voldemort in the bowels of Hogwarts, Tom Riddle’s diary flashback, Harry realizing in The Prisoner of Azkaban that he had to save himself from the Dementors (he was the one he was waiting for, not his father), the odious Dolores Umbridge’s scarringly evil detention punishment for Harry, the battle against the Death Eaters in the Ministry of Magic which killed Sirius (so devastating for orphan Harry) and the death of Dumbledore. (*sniff*)



Red Riding Hood Trailer (The 'New Twilight?'): While some have likened the trailer for the film Red Riding Hood to “Twilight in a cape,” a writer at the web site Jezebel says she thinks this film, which stars Big Love’s Amanda Seyfried, “looks so much better” than director Catherine Hardwicke’s other big film, the original Twilight movie.

What do you think?

Feeling Stressed Out by the Prospect of Thanksgiving Dinner? Play Dysfunctional Family Bingo

If you're a person who's concerned about what odd/uncomfortable/upsetting/infuriating thing might occur during your Thanksgiving celebration with your family, then you might want to consider taking a peek at my 2009 Dysfunctional Family Bingo card which I've posted on my other blog. It's a Bingo card whose squares are filled with weird/irritating events that could plausibly occur during your family's celebration of gratitude. It's not a Bingo game that you actually want to win, though, unless you're into that sort of self-torture thing.

It's meant to be a humorous albeit snarky way to remember that nobody actually has perfect Bree Van de Kamp Hodge/Martha Stewart holiday dinners with family.

The New York Times obliquely referenced Dysfunctional Family Bingo -- a concept created by a Massachusetts psychologist in 2000 -- in its Science section today in an article entitled, "Food, Kin and Tension at Thanksgiving." Some of the anecdotes mentioned in the story could've made for good entries for my Dysfunctional Family Bingo card, including this one:

"[The director of a university-based eating disorders program] told the story of a patient whose mother scolded her for not eating her homemade cookies. 'You don't like my cookies?' she asked. As a result, the daughter relented and took a cookie. But when she then reached for a second, her mother scolded her again. 'Do you really think you need another one?' she asked her."

Please Help Me Out with the Dysfunctional Family Bingo Contest, You Could Win an Autographed Book

* Cross-posted on the Picket Fence Post blog. *

For the past few years I’ve addressed the issue of holiday stress – particularly when you gather multiple generations together for a high-pressure holiday dinner — by creating Dysfunctional Family Bingo cards. I take awkward-but-realistic scenarios that might occur during (before or after) your family’s Thanksgiving dinner and place each one into a box on a BINGO card and pray that no one checks off enough boxes to actually win.

In some twisted way, writing up all of these scenarios amuses me and serves as a reminder that EVERYONE experiences a bit of familial dysfunction during holiday dinners so we may as well just find the humor in them. (For the full history of Dysfunctional Family Bingo, go here.)

What kinds of scenarios am I talking about? For the past couple years, I’ve used a few of my own holiday experiences (though there’s no way I’m ‘fessing up which ones are autobiographical) as well as some which my friends have shared with me in order to fill out each box on the Bingo card. Here are a few from my 2008 Dysfunctional Family Bingo card:

– Some older children at the gathering taught your impressionable young child how to spit, the glory of purple nurples and new vocabulary words like the “F” word.

– Your mother suggests that you join her in starting a diet in the new year, noting that your pants are getting “a bit snug” and asks you if you’ve ever heard of the term “muffin top.”

– It gets heated when several members of the family cannot agree on the best, fastest route to take from this location to the mall.

– A male relative drags you outside and points out everything that’s wrong with your house, from the roof and gutters, to the window screens and the chimney.

– Maxi pads, whose box you had tucked away in a bathroom cabinet, were taken out by a young nephew who decided to remove the paper strips on the back and stick them all over the bathroom wall in a random pattern.

This year, I’m going to ask you, my smart and witty blog readers, to please contribute YOUR OWN oddball/dysfunctional family holiday dinner scenarios which could happen (or have happened) during the celebration of Thanksgiving. I’ll use reader suggestions along with my own to create my 2009 Dysfunctional Family Bingo card. Please e-mail me your contribution (everybody’s got to have at least one amusing scenario) — to meredithobrien@hotmail.com — no later than noon on Monday, November 23.

The best four contributions (as determined by me) will earn their creators an autographed and personalized copy of my collection of humor/parenting columns, Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum, where the motto is, “Parenting is best done with a hearty sense of humor.” Looking forward to reading your e-mails!

Image credit: AP.

Holiday Dinners Stress You Out? Play Dysfunctional Family Bingo

This year The Spouse and I are NOT -- I repeat -- NOT hosting a Thanksgiving dinner at our house as we have for several consecutive years. We will not be deep frying our turkey in the backyard while I pray that The Spouse doesn't set something on fire, arguing over whether the corn bread stuffing we've made is moist enough or whether we've made a sufficient amount of mashed potatoes.

But that does not mean we are immune to the stress that often accompanies attending BIG holiday celebrations. (And I'm not even talkin' Christmas yet.) Thus the creation of my 2008 Dysfunctional Family Bingo card that's currently up at my parenting blog, the Picket Fence Post. It's a bingo card whose squares are filled with potentially awful scenarios that could occur during a family holiday dinner. Believe me, this is a game you do not want to win.

For years, my friends and I would joke about secretly playing Dysfunctional Family Bingo, particularly after sharing a number of war stories about our experiences. Now we've opened up the game to everyone. Feel free to play along, or just add your own loony holiday dinner story(stories) in the comments section. Remember, no one ever has a perfect holiday celebration.

Happy Thanksgiving!