{"id":2484,"date":"2016-12-20T14:04:41","date_gmt":"2016-12-20T20:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/?p=2484"},"modified":"2016-12-20T14:05:54","modified_gmt":"2016-12-20T20:05:54","slug":"lists-mfos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/lists-mfos\/","title":{"rendered":"Lists: MFOs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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With my mother at the helm, my family\u2019s household was frequently the venue for large gatherings at Christmas and Thanksgiving.\u00a0 These events were always casual and pot-luck, but even so she nurtured a variety of strategies to make sure that these m<\/strong>andatory f<\/strong>amily o<\/strong>bligations didn\u2019t turn into m<\/strong>other-f<\/strong>**ing o<\/strong>rdeals.\u00a0 Below are five of her favorite strategies that have undergone extensive beta-testing over decades and generations.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 \u00a0Dinner Seating \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

My mother strove to find a balance between the rigidity of a fixed seating plan and the spontaneity she craved.\u00a0 Her solution was two hats of paired items that she passed around before dinner with the instruction \u201cGo Forth and Find Your Match.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0The pairs varied over the years.\u00a0 One year there were two sequential verses of a Christmas carol and you found your dinner partner by singing in search of the next verse.\u00a0 Another year the hats contained a variety of separated pairs of nuts and bolts, ranging in size from teeny tiny to jumbo.\u00a0 Once paired up, you went through the buffet line with your partner and sat together at randomly selected seats.\u00a0 Although I observed some black-market trading, this system ensured that crazy Aunt Bertha with that scary hairy mole on her cheek wouldn\u2019t get stranded.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Chores<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most everyone wanted to chip in, but given the melee of people the \u201chow\u201d could be an overwhelming conundrum.\u00a0 Including a chore on the inside of the folded place card was a simple solution.\u00a0 Everyone assumed the chore assigned to their seat.\u00a0 I am now at the helm of the next generation of Thanksgiving and have adopted this strategy for the 35-40 family and friends who gather at our house.\u00a0 My chores range from the pedestrian \u201chelp scrape dinner plates\u201d to more creative efforts such as \u201csee if Grandma needs more vodka,\u201d or \u201ctell Frances you like her new haircut.\u201d\u00a0 One year I ran out of Thanksgiving-specific chores, but thought I might as well take advantage of my nephews at the peak of their heavy-lifting prowess.\u00a0 I penciled in \u201cPlease put in the storm doors,\u201d a chore that Nick and I find particularly unpleasant.\u00a0 Done.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Christmas Stockings<\/strong><\/p>\n

My mother was always in charge of Christmas stockings, a job that became unwieldy as the family grew to include in-laws and grandchildren.\u00a0 Her solution was to make a sweep through a few stores and then fill the stockings at random, figuring that everyone could trade later.\u00a0 One year, Nick reached into his stocking to find a pair of panty house, while our 2-year-old daughter gnawed on a hockey puck. \u00a0 \u00a0I remember my brother trading away almost the entire contents of his stocking to end up with a map of the Zodiac and several boxes of Whitman samplers. \u00a0 This bartering add spark, energy (and strategy) to the morning.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Gifts<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhite elephant\u201d gift exchanges are a standard holiday event, but my mother wanted to spice up the typical scenario where gifts are opened one by one and participants can decide whether to keep it or exchange with someone else.\u00a0 Yawn.\u00a0 This was just too slow-moving for our family.\u00a0 My mother found a way to speed it up and inject competition into the mix.\u00a0 All the wrapped gifts \u2013 mostly silly things, recycled gifts, novelty food items, old pictures \u00a0– \u00a0were placed in the center, and then everyone started rolling dice.\u00a0 If you rolled a \u201c7,\u201d \u201c11\u201d or \u201cdoubles\u201d you could choose one of the gifts.\u00a0 After all were taken, the gifts were opened and displayed to the group.<\/p>\n

Now the action really picked up.\u00a0 My mother would set the timer for five minutes, and we would snatch items from someone else\u2019s pile if we rolled a \u201c7\u201d, \u201c11\u201d or \u201cdoubles.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0The most fascinating part of this exercise was that inevitably one gift became the \u201chot\u201d item, madly traded back and forth as the clock ticked down.\u00a0 One year it was a pork-pie hat, another year, for no discernable reason, the hot item was an over-sized smoked sausage.\u00a0 The group psychology was particularly intriguing the year the family tussled over a bunch of tickets for the upcoming lottery.\u00a0 The tension rose as we all quietly succumbed to the\u00a0collective delusion that that the jackpot was at stake right here in our living room<\/em>.\u00a0 Of course I knew the tickets weren\u2019t winners, duh, but JUST IN CASE, I sure as hell was not going to let my sister-in-law end up with them. \u00a0I was not alone.\u00a0 Everyone focused on getting those tickets and they were traded with an unbridled frenzy.\u00a0 When the buzzer went off I was limp with exhaustion, my forehead beaded with sweat, but I was clutching the tickets.\u00a0 After watching this manic performance our young son understandably assumed that we had\u00a0truly won the jackpot; he wanted to know if he could help spend the money.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Pacing<\/strong><\/p>\n

My mother knew that a multi-generational event could not rely on cocktails, conversation and dinner.\u00a0 She kept things lively with various games, such as a search for a list of items hidden in plain sight. Of course, once hidden, you might as well leave them for the next year.\u00a0 In my house, the pennies glued to the eyes of the owl tchotchke have been there for years.<\/p>\n

\"thumbnail_img_0352\"<\/a><\/p>\n

However, as our kids grew and I took over the reins of our family\u2019s Christmas, I knew that I needed to make some tweaks to her formula.\u00a0 Our teenaged kids had outgrown the whiz-bang Christmases with games and piles of gifts.\u00a0 One year I discovered the entire contents of our son’s stocking \u2013 the gum, the Pez dispenser, toenail clippers, etc. \u2013 neatly stacked in his closet.\u00a0 I simply scooped everything up and repurposed it for the next Christmas. \u00a0Nobody noticed.<\/p>\n

All the kids really wanted was a Christmas check, and basically that fine with me as long as I could recapture the energy and entertainment of prior years.\u00a0 Family Jeopardy was the answer.\u00a0 I created various categories such as \u201cFamily Pets,\u201d with entries such as \u201cthe name of the dog that Granny ran over.\u201d \u00a0(Answer in the form of a question: Who was Fido?) I added surprising trivia gathered from secret interviews with their friends, such as \u201cthe reason you got arrested.\u201d\u00a0 (Answer in the form of a question: \u201cWhat is peeing in the alley behind the bar?\u201d)\u00a0 I also created entries from magazines that I had given the kids to read, telling them that it might come in handy on Christmas day.\u00a0 I arranged the entries according to degree of difficulty, added in daily doubles and then finally got a wad of fives, tens and twenties to peel off if they \u201cquestioned\u201d the answers correctly.\u00a0 \u201cFamily pets for $10, Mom.\u201d\u00a0 It worked perfectly.<\/p>\n

As I plot and plan, tweak and twist my mother\u2019s traditions, I realize how fortunate I am to have such a gifted mentor.\u00a0 With her guidance, I have made sure that m<\/strong>andatory f<\/strong>amily o<\/strong>bligations remain m<\/strong>y f<\/strong>avorite o<\/strong>ccasions.<\/p>\n

\"fan\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fan Brown, 1927-2007<\/p>\n

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Fan Brown, 1927-2007<\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>Share: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  With my mother at the helm, my family\u2019s household was frequently the venue for large gatherings at Christmas and Thanksgiving.\u00a0 These events were always casual and pot-luck, but even so she nurtured a variety of strategies to make sure … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVc8-E4","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2484"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2491,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484\/revisions\/2491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}