Faux-giving

Yesterday, my family and I had Faux-giving ... Fake Thanksgiving ... because my parents will be out of the country on the real Thanksgiving. The family event consisted of myself, hubby and the two boys; my brother and his wife and their two young'ins; and my sister and her boyfriend.

One of the things that really struck me about this year's family gathering (other than the fact that all four kids were actually old enough to play on their own for longer than 5 minutes before they started wreaking havoc) was how easy it was to feed the kids. All the food allergies, pretty much a non-issue.

I attribute this phenomenon to the fact that my family know "the products." My mom doesn't even give it a second thought when she makes the mashed potatoes ... she uses the Miracle Margarine (along with soy milk). And she uses it in the carrots, green beans and sweet potatoes.

On a related note, Little Guy LOVED the sweet potatoes (probably because they are soaked in margarine and brown sugar). But jeez, he could not get enough of those. I was seriously afraid to give him too many, I mean, would he turn orange??? He could be the orange version of Violet Beauregarde.

Anyway, my mom also bought soy ice cream for the boys to eat while the rest of us pig out on French Vanilla. And Big Guy can eat the apple pie. Both boys could eat just about everything on the table. This is probably not a big deal to other moms, but it is pretty cool to me.

It wasn't that long ago (2 or 3 years) that I was quizzing my mom about what was in all the food so I could figure out what Big Guy could eat .... answer: not much. With all the hullabaloo with the holidays, my mom forgot to use miracle margarine and used regular butter. I felt bad Big Guy couldn't eat much, she felt bad she forgot. Overall, not a great scene.

But, you can see that with time we don't even think about it. What used to be a stessful big deal, has turned into a nonevent. A regular happy dysfunctional Faux-giving.

I have a LOT to be thankful for in my life and what I am blogging about today just represents one small thing on that list.