Wasn't it GREAT?

 I'm sitting here smiling ear to ear.  This has been one of the best Thanksgivings ever.  Of course, I miss my Minnesota family and they are not fodder for any of my angry holiday rants.  I'm venting about my in-laws and their offspring.  

COVID has allowed us to ditch traditions that have grated on hosts nerves for decades.  For years I would cook large meals for holidays.  As all the kids in the family grew so did their entitlement attitudes.  It became expected that holiday meals magically appeared without effort on my part and I, as a host, should know to plan via telepathy if these now grown kids were going to show up at all and on time; and if they did, if they were going to bring a plus one.  Answering invitations in a timely manner, or at all,  is something that is completely lost on them.  

This year I got the big BOW OUT.  Nope, not hosting.  We were fine just with our household bubble.  It's much safer than mixing households.  Another family member, who I will refer to as K, lives in town and invited her elderly mother and father over.  Pretty soon it was the elderly parents and the Melting Snow Woman (their completely useless, lazy, and nasty alcoholic daughter who is 53 years old and sister to K).  Then it was Melting Snow Woman's daughter, toddler, and husband.  Then it was Melting Snow Woman's other daughter who decided at the night before Thanksgiving that she wanted to come and also bring along her girlfriend.  

Stop right there.  K's invitation was to her elderly parents.  The others are like toilet paper on a shoe that wanted to trail along uninvited.  It's so unfair to K.  She was planning on a very small gathering and it morphed into a circus of several households.  The toilet paper brigade is like a swarm of locusts.  They will find a host, completely consume them, and then move on.  I was so proud of K when she put the brakes on hosting the toilet paper locust brigade.  She simply stated that was too many without notice and it was not safe.  

K's parents ended up hosting the locusts, which is sad as they are elderly and not in the best of health, and K was trying to do something nice for them.  I'm sure the locusts sat on their bottoms while the elderly lady cooked and cleaned and did not contribute one bit as that is what they are known for.  However, the parents are reaping what they have sown.  

The point is that the locust toilet paper brigade landed exactly at the source of their hatching.  It's sad that they will consume and kill their hosts, but I have no control over that and I'm glad to be rid of the pests.  LIBERATED AT LAST :)