Giving Tanks

It seems fitting, at the end of a rather stressful Thanksgiving holiday, that the Atlanta to New York, JFK leg of my flight found me sitting next to a rather friendly taxidermist. My dad was amused by Tim's suggestion that his poodle and companion Mr. Brown should be stuffed into a fashionable stole of sorts upon dying, thereby making him fit to participate in my wedding, regardless of age or impairment.

Oddly, my dad, usually the source of all holiday tension, behaved fabulously over Tgiving. My siblings and in-law? Not so much. My sister took it upon herself to invite her fiancee to every family event. As he will shortly be family, I thought this was fine. My brother and sister-in-law thought Big Ron might not be ready for so much future son-in-law and hoped to maintain my dad's good mood. They suggested maybe fiancee shouldn't come over to decorate the tree. My sister took great offense to this and a comparison of how much time one's spouse should spend with his/her future in-laws prior to wedding ensued. Ron was about to come over and teach the ladies how to make the family fudge and that, too, became a part of the fight:

Sister: "I don't see why he couldn't be here and watch us make fudge!"
Sis-in-law: "I'm just saying I think your dad just wanted to make fudge and watch the game with just the family!"
Sister: "My fiancee is family and I don't even want to make the fucking fudge!"
Sis-in-law:"Well, I don't particularly want to be with your dad in the kitchen and I'm lactose intolerant! So fuck you and your family fudge!"

My sister avoided all of us, even me, for the rest of the weekend. She looked like hell and cried a lot. She apologized to me but what could be done. My dad didn't cause a lick of tension directly yet we still went above and beyond to insure that nothing rocked the boat. And we're all adults. My sister-in-law doesn't understand why we bend to him so much and when we tell him "he's our only living parent," she clams up but still doesn't quite get it. Because as much as we hate him sometimes, we love him more. And he grows simultaneously more feeble and more oddly sagelike by the day: "Kad, dere's always another book to take off the shelf."

What the hell does that mean?