Grateful for a holiday with unstandard family

For two weeks, Bandit and Krypto have competed in the only sport at which either one has any skill: “Who can cost more money in veterinary bills?” Bandit, who barely even walks, managed to get a foxtail embedded in his paw. Krypto, normally the healthiest of pets, managed to get something stuck in his inner eyelid. The vet hasn’t shown it to me, but I suspect it was a glowing green meteorite.

The good thing is that these are mundane accidents, unlike my human children, who tend to go to the pediatrician only after jamming their head in a concrete staircase, or sticking a magnet under their foreskin.

So on the fifth trip to Dr. Grossbard’s office, Adrian, his lovely wife and office manager, said, “You’re going to have to fit in any other emergencies before Tuesday afternoon. After that, he’s going to Columbus, Ohio.”

“Holidays with the family?”

“No,” she sighed, “A Grateful Dead concert.”

At first, I thought this a little odd, and then I got it. Thanksgiving. Gratitude. Grateful Dead. But while the good doctor is busy playing air guitar to “Casey Jones,” we mortals are left in paradise, handing out canine antibiotics before holding hands, eating turkey and trying hard to look thankful.

Last year, my husband, Brian, got up at 4 in the morning to bake bread, and before I even had my coffee, I was simmering sausage and celery for the stuffing. Ten hours later, the potatoes were mashed, the string beans casseroled and the corn fried in bacon. Nineteen of us sat around the table, said grace, toasted family and, while the gravy congealed, each of us said what we were thankful for. Zane, the 18th to go, squeezed my hand as he said, “I’m grateful we’re almost done with this praying business. Next year, I’d like to be thankful for a dirt bike.”

Snarky gratitude: It’s an easy trap. All too often, we’re so busy wishing for what we don’t have that we forget to appreciate what we got.

Take the dogs. I want to be grateful for three healthy hounds, but what I really should be grateful for is that we have a very nice vet who, despite his taste in music, has the wisdom to be able to keep three rescue dogs going for more than a decade. Whereas we humans struggle for words to express our gratitude, the dogs know that wagging their tails is enough.

I want to be grateful for a normal family, but what I really should be grateful for is that we are not, that we look at life from a slant. Normal is overrated. It might get you into a better high school, but it’s been my experience that the stories of standard people are not nearly as interesting as those of the unstandard. And we Fisher-Paulsons are as peculiar as it gets. We’re not perfect. We’re not even average. We fail vocabulary tests and run away from home and throw tantrums in the back of the church. But this impossible combination of dancer and deputy have held together a challenged family on determination alone. Somewhere in between all these layers of ADHD and hyperactivity, we’ve raised the only two straight teenage boys who can both make the junior varsity basketball team and critique the finalists on “Project Runway.”

And even though the dogs may offer me unconditional love, my sons make it highly conditional: “If you loved me, you wouldn’t make me eat carrots this year.”

I want to be grateful for tradition, but what I really should be grateful for is the courage to change. We’ve transplanted Thanksgiving this year. Since 2001, we’ve hosted an orphan holiday in the blue bungalow, but for the first time ever, our boys are spending the fourth Thursday in November at the Sasbs, who have seen each and every one of our mood swings, and yet still invited us to break bread. As part of his midlife crisis, Mr. Sasb has turned vegan, and despite all my assurances that the turkey himself was a strict vegetarian, so certainly the meat would be vegan, it is likely that I will be pushing a hunk of tofu around my plate tomorrow.

But it doesn’t matter what we eat. It matters only whom we eat with.

So tomorrow evening, as we gather with our chosen family, I will try to be thankful for crippled Pekingeses and delinquent children and friends like you who read this column. I will try be Grateful for the Living. And the Dead.