Happy Rudesgiving!

I can’t remember when Rudesgiving originated, but with such a geographically dispersed family — and with each of my brothers having their own families and in-laws — we needed to come up with our own convenient time to gather. So, for several years we’ve been finding an off-peak weekend to meet up. This year it’s my brother Sam and his family in Texas who are hosting.

But our careful planning was no match for a government shutdown and its effects on air travel. My brother Wayne and his family decided to stay put, rather than risk not getting home in time for an important event, and so sadly they are missing from the photo above.

The home of the Texan Rudes is warm and inviting, and we’ve spent the day eating good food, talking, and playing games. What really makes it feel like a family holiday gathering for me is the coming together of multiple generations under one roof. I don’t get this experience in my daily life, and it’s this missing ingredient that’s so reminiscent of my childhood.

Thanksgivings and Christmases in my youth typically involved driving the five hours from Indiana to my grandparents’ farmhouse in Wisconsin. There we would crowd into the living or dining room with dozens of other relatives and find ourselves picking up conversations we had misplaced months ago. The heat emanating from the kitchen was compounded by the heat of too many bodies in a small space. The sounds of aunties cackling, unsupervised children, whining dogs, clanking plates. Yes, it was a little chaotic, but for me it was heaven. 

My mom won’t approve of me writing this, but on her side of the family, chaos was a feature, not a bug, of the holiday programming. It was expected and to some degree I think appreciated. Yes, it could test your patience, but it was also a sign of life. My mom claims that the large family gatherings hosted by her grandparents a generation earlier were a more staid and formal affair, where children were to be seen and not heard. But I’m unconvinced. This photo from Thanksgiving 1953 has a hint of the chaos that I’m talking about.

Family gatherings in my dad’s childhood were convivial but maybe slightly restrained, at least compared to today. Grandma Borghild would bring out her best china and children were to mind their manners. You might get a shirt three sizes too small for Christmas, but you needed to thank Grandma anyway. 

For today’s festivities in Fort Worth, the multigenerational aspect was on full display when we played “Hitster”. This game requires you to place the songs you pull from a deck into their proper chronological order. My parents were experts in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. My generation did pretty well with the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. And my niece excelled at the 2020s. It struck me that where we all failed was in the late 2000s and 2010s. I suspect that’s where my younger brother Wayne and his fiancée would have put us to shame, had they been with us. Clearly, a rematch is in order!