My wife and 9-year-old son roll their eyes.
Hey, it’s tradition.
I get that they don’t get how Hitchcock suspense movies have
anything to do with a holiday about giving thanks, about family. On the plus
side, however, Thanksgiving is about turkey, and Hitch did cook up one heck-of-a
film about birds.
I don’t quite recall how watching Hitchcock films on
Thanksgiving came to be a tradition of mine. I think there were a couple of
Thanksgiving holidays in a row where I happened to be in the mood for a slice
of murder. Then, one year, I went without. And I knew I was missing something
delicious.
The next year, I made sure to watch “The Birds.” The year
after that, I watched “The Birds” and a few other Hitch classics. But last
year, I made plans for the tastiest Thanksgiving Hitch Movie Marathon of all. I
had the entire holiday programmed through dinner, with all the trimmings and
“Psycho” for dessert.
I showed my wife a printout of the movie line-up. She
actually exhaled into my face, flipping the paper back at me without giving the
mix of films any consideration.
Great, I wondered, what’d
I do this time?
Turns out that she was annoyed with me for making, what she
defined as, weird plans for Thanksgiving
Day.
“Weird means it’s not
normal,” I said.
“It’s not normal,” my
wife replied.
“No, I normally watch
Hitch movies every Thanksgiving. It’s tradition. So it is normal.”
“It’s not normal,” my wife said, “to bring movies to someone
else’s house and play them on their TV during a holiday gathering. We are not
playing Hitchcock movies at my aunt’s house for Thanksgiving. It’s not normal.”
That settled it. I’d make it the new norm.
I chopped a few films from the line-up to slim it down and
packed up my DVDs for the long voyage to my wife’s aunt’s house. This, I thought, will be the best Thanksgiving
yet.
Days before the gathering, family members discussed what
they hoped to do on the holiday. Some planned to watch football. I figured I’d
just check scores for them in between movies. My wife and her aunt planned to
spend quality family time together. Who does that anymore now that we have
iPads? My son planned to go on a turkey egg hunt. Where do you even find turkey
eggs? Maybe that was the point.
First thing Thanksgiving morning, my brother called and
asked if I was going to play “Duck Hunt.” I forgot about that tradition, which
died long ago when I retired my old Nintendo video game system. The death of
one tradition was all the more reason to keep my Hitchcock movie tradition
alive.
On the car ride over to the Thanksgiving festivities, I realized
my plan was too perfect to work. I couldn’t just thrust my movies onto the
whole family.
But maybe I could.
Then my wife asked if I left the DVDs at home. I told her I
hadn’t. She reminded me why I made a mistake -- she’d make my life miserable if
I asked to play them on her aunt’s TV.
Good enough reason.
I brought the movies into the house anyway. Rather, I
smuggled them in with the bag of side dishes my wife prepared -- just in case I
got the opportunity to play them. But I knew I’d just have to swallow the
excitement I had for a day with Hitch and take part in everyone else’s
traditions.
By the end of the night, I hadn’t even mentioned my movie
marathon. In fact, I forgot all about it. I was having such large portions of
fun spending time with everyone and hunting down turkey eggs and watching
football and eating and not watching any of my films. I really forgot all about
Hitch. Really.
On the way home, my wife thanked me for not pushing my film
festival on the family.
“It was really a great Thanksgiving,” I replied. “I didn’t
even need my Hitch Movie Marathon.”
After 12 years of marriage, I’ve learned to compromise. And
I feel good about it, like a good husband, a good father, a good person.
But this Thanksgiving is another story.
Now for this year’s line-up of Hitchcock films . . .
-November 2012
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