November 25, 2007

• Holiday Blessings

  Thanksgving day was great! First of all, I went to see a friend in the hospital. He was recovering from a hernia. I boycotted dinner at moms. I know that sounds bad, but it was necessary. It was a matter of self-respect. Every year at either easter, Thanksgiving, Xmas or New Years…at one of these I ask if I can invite a guest. There is always an excuse, justification or reason as to why I can’t. When I want to invite someone, it’s always, “We just want our family to be there,” or they come up with some other reason why I can’t invite the person; like, “I don’t want to be uncomfortable with someone I don’t know.” 

  However, if my brother wants to invite someone, it is always ok, even when it was already stated that it would just be our family. Every year I have complained about this discrepancy in treatment, but they have talked me into coming to dinner anyways. This time, I asked after being told that my brother’s friend who was depressed, and my brother had invited, had gone to his wife’s (they were separated). So my mom was already expecting my brother’s friend and it was ok, and then we found out he wasn’t coming after all. So I asked about my friend, who, to my knowledge at the time, had no family here and nowhere to go. All this I told my mother. At first my mom said yes after much prodding from me, then an hour later, she calls and leaves a message saying for me to tell my friend no. She just didn’t feel like making the “extra effort.”

  I decided that I needed to make a stand…to make a statement, because I was tired of being disrespected in this manner by both of them. So I boycotted the dinner…sending a text message to my brother about 2 hours prior to the time I was supposed to be there. I told him that it was not a family occassion when respect and consideration was only being extended to some and not to all.

  I didn’t go to the house again until Sat., and moms attempted to say it was a misunderstanding, and that it wasn’t fair of me to say that they never allowed me to bring a guest. She cited one occassion with my bf on thanksgiving. I didn’t recall that as being a thanksgiving dinner, just a dinner. Neither did my bf, but I gave her that one. But that was like…ten years ago. She tried to claim some other guy I had invited, but that never happened. Then she tried to claim my ex…well, hello…I married the guy! But again…I let it go. I let her say her piece and only stated firmly that they never let me invite anyone, and that my bf was the one exception to that rule.

  However, on thanksgiving…we visited my friend in the hospital, and then went to the church and had lunch there. It was nice. Plenty of people…more volunteers than people to eat. My pastor later remarked that everyone was so eager to serve that they were stumbling over each other. Guests to eat: 250; Volunteers to serve: 300. But that’s a good thing.

  After hanging out there for about 3 hours and letting lil man run about with some kids, we went to see…

  

   

  It was really cute. I loved the “Honex” factory inside the honey comb.  If you haven’t seen this…I recommend it. It had a good moral about lack of purpose, and how detrimental and adverse that can be.

  So after this, I gave lil man an option. He could come to an all adult party with me, or hang at home and watch some of his favorite DVD’s that I checked out from the library. He opted for the DVD’s. So I went to a party at the home of some people I didn’t even know. And guess who invited me? The same guy that I thought had nowhere to go. Yeah…it turned out that he invited me to a great party…a wonderful house. There was a diversity of people there…three guys from the Calvary House, a Jamaican lady with her mother (I think it was her mother), a Jewish lady and her Italian husband from the church, my friend, who is Trinidadian, and me…the 7 nationality split; as well as the owners of the house, who I think were also Jewish.

  Their home was so warm and inviting. It was this beautiful light blue on the walls with white accents. It was light and airy. They had several pets…all of which I hit is off with immediately. The chichuawa mix dog, and a cat with a kidney condition that had to be hydrated every other day (so the poor thing was wasn’t feeling very well). They also had 3 sizes of parrots/parakeets. The large grey and white with the red tail fell in love with me and kept kissing me. It was hilarious. The owners said that he never gets that friendly with someone in the first meeting, but he was quite enthralled with me and was so attentive every time I spoke to him. So I was very entertained with all of the animals, as I was able to communicate with each one of them.

  The lady of the house cooked a fantastic meal….it was soooo good, and we sang songs afterwards, praising God. It was just fabulous….exactly the kind of holiday I was hoping for. I would not have gotten this at my mom’s. It would have been nice, but not like that. We would not have a bunch of people there, and be singing praises to God. I really wanted something more open to others…more sharing and God blessed me with that, so I am very grateful and blessed to have had that opportunity to share the holiday with total strangers.

  I did nothing on black friday. I’m just not into it, so I chilled. The whole weekend has been basically relaxings. Only today I went to do laundry…and exhausted myself after being there for about 5 hours….that’s how much we had to do. Anyways, I’m still happy and grateful for the wonderful holiday. I hope everyone else’s was just as blessed. Peace all.

  • 10:17 pm
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