We Think We're Really Funny

My family operates on the premise that if you laugh enough, you will burn all the calories consumed at the Thanksgiving table. Thus, after a bit of time to digest, there was a flurry of excitement as folks changed in to costume and collected props. The smell of greasepaint was in the air and the crowd murmered in anticipation. Or something like that.

Dame Judi did a lovely recitation of James Whitcomb Riley's "The Bee Bag", attended by my father, taunting the poor little child who used to be a brownie, with the "bee bag that the fairies stoled away".



















Thanksgiving 2006, the year my father came out.



















Our family was the Bhygollhys, Indira, Priti and Raj "Call Me Roger". (We are fond of characters that involve accents). This year we took a poke at outsourcing. When we introduced ourselves at table we wore headsets and interrupted our own introductions to say things like "American Express, how may I help you". (Raj works for Dell, Indira has an afterschool job on the help desk at "Toys R Us").














For the talent show, Raj invited the audience, "in the spirit of fostering multicultural understanding", to ask us questions. These we fielded with other "customer service" pet peeves. The first question, for example, was if our water was drinkable. Unfortunately, Raj could not answer the question because the asker did not have her account number. The second question was for me, wherein Mols decided to get an answer to the water question. Sadly, I had to put her on hold. I didn't even hear The Child's, I mean, Indira's question because I was, of course, softly humming "hold" music. After a couple rounds I finally had an answer for Mols, but in a stroke of bad luck, we were disconnected just as I started to give it to her. Namaste.
















This portion of the holiday is not a competition and there is no voting, prizes nor yet even bragging rights. But, if there had been some sort of objective measurement, a laugh meter or some such, the top prize may well have gone to Martha Stewart's family, for a very hysterical and perfectly choreographed lip-synched rendition of "Wild Thing".



















Martha's eldest daughter is now married. She and her husband, in the guise of the Van Poofbegone's, did some magic tricks. Really, really impressive magic tricks.














This is Audrey Hepburn's family. Rapping. White people. 'Nuff said.














As an added bonus, Jane and Mols did a lip-synced version of the terribly amusing little number from "Spamalot", entitled "The Song that Goes Like This", the lyrics of which you can find here and a smidge of a sample can be found here (#8).














The show most delightfully over, we enjoyed pie. And then someone, a child perhaps, asked my sisters and I to do our 3 Headed Singer routine. Taking themes and musical styles from the audience, we improvise a song, each of us offering up one word at a time. It had been a while since we'd done it but we didn't suck. We certainly cracked ourselves up.