Never feel like more of an Aspie than at Thanksgiving...

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If this is in the wrong place, my apologies.

All the family in this geographical location comes over, we have to squish together at a small table, the smells are overwhelming, everyone is making far too much noise, and worst of all they keep trying to get you to join the conversation when really you'd like nothing better than to either leave and do stuff by myself(never a viable option) or stare at the cool patterns on my turkey/pheasant napkin. And yet, they insist on trying to bring you into the conversation.

Please, commiserate with me on the horrors of this social interaction nightmare of a holiday, and or any advice for making it more bbearable?

Faking a sore throat goes a long way toward not having to talk.

You would have loved dinner at my house tonight. There were 7 of us. We sat at the table and ate, without talking, listening to Alice's Restaurant, had two helpings each, then dessert, hardly a word was spoken, then we got up and left the table. I'm the only aspie here. I went over to turn the song off, which was on YouTube, and the entire dinner, start to finish, was 18:23. Really.

Everybody said it was the best Thanksgiving they had in a long time.

We cooked all day.

Frances

Wow, that sounds awesome Olive, you have good friends/family. Sore throat, good idea. Why was it so quiet though? If you're the only aspie, I mean, usually NTs love their talking. A 20 minute thanksgiving... o.o Sheesh....

Move to another country.

When my sister was dating someone from America we had a small thanksgiving.
He was such a talker though and no one expected me to talk.
We all had to say what we were thankful for though. When it was my turn and because it was the first time I ate it, I said I was thankful for pumpkin pie.
Later everyone except me got stoned with my sister's boyfriend.

My family has big gatherings too. They always slide alcohol my way and I drink it, though I shouldn't have too much.
Christmas lunch could be a real test as I am becoming sick of social interaction.
I have a young niece I suspect Asperger's in. I might just go hang with her...if she wasn't scared of me.

For my birthday two days later I plan on building a MiG 15, that's seriously all I want to do.

Sometimes helping out in the kitchen is a way to end up among two or three people instead of twelve or thirteen. Especially during the cleaning-up when most people magically disappear to the part of the house furthest away from the kitchen.
Although that isn't much help for the actual dinner part.
I get up every so often with the excuse of refilling the water pitcher or something and take a long time in the at-that-point-vacant kitchen to calm down a bit.

I took a break between eating the plate of food and eating dessert, and came back when everyone was done eating. Then I ate dessert, and excused myself so they could continue talking and socializing and I didn't end up feeling annoyed. I get away with it because my family is used to me and would rather have me there for a short time than force me to be tortured.

I pretty much wore my pijamas to dinner as well. ha! Always when I used to have to eat with my ex's family it was the whole loud, prolonged, over stuffed ordeal and lets just say I do not miss that at all. It doesn't mean people weren't nice, because they were, but it just always made me want to go home and not see people for a day.

I said I was thankful for the Muppets Movie. At least Im honest!

If you manage to eat the entire time you can avoid conversation.

Speaking of the Muppets Movie I saw that today. It was awesome.

I stayed at home with the cat, made some corn chowder, drank coffee and had some cigarettes and plastered some drywall in a room. All the roomies were at their families' houses.

I am most thankful to have a roof over my head, which was a precarious situation last week.

My parents always had a lot of people over when I was a child, so I always just ate one plate to be polite, then excused myself from the table and hid in my room and played videogames or read until I went to sleep. This year some people I work with invited me over, among a crapload of other people. I went, again, mostly just to be polite, ate a plate, then went home (I said I had a headache, which, oddly enough, I had planned to to use as an excuse, but by the end of the meal I was actually starting to get a bad one). If I had stayed, I would have either drank myself into oblivion or had a meltdown.

Are you the only aspie in an NT family like me? That was something I was hyperaware of today (first big family gathering since my diagnosis, even if I had suspected before it)

Volunteer to be the official family Thanksgiving photographer.

I am anyway and when I'm taking photos people aren't trying to get me involved in conversation.

Everyone I spent Thanksgiving with this year knows I've got AS. They didn't pressure me to be more social, which was good. However, I was there since yesterday at about noonish and I really felt trapped most of the time. There was nowhere to go to be by myself. I was quite close to a meltdown more than once.

I brought my laptop with me, because I knew it would be like that. Any time I couldn't be alone but desperately needed to, I zoned out on it for a while. In my teens, I did the same thing, but with books. I always had 2 or 3 books with me wherever I went.

just got back from my obligatory t-giving get2gether, and after digesting the sumptuous meal [a million times better than i normally eat the other 364 days] i am quite tired now, ready for a post-prandial snooze. the food more than made up for the stresses of the barking dog who kept slamming into my legs as he submarined underneath the dinner table, screaming children, loud music etc. everybody else was too into their own cliquish thing to bother asking me anything about anything, with the exception of one elderly lady who was closer to my wavelength.

It was quiet because we were eating and listening to the song. We made a few comments like "This turkey is really good, and I usually hate turkey because turkey is usually dry" and son - "Mom, what's the best thing to cut this pie with?" me - "A knife" and "This is the live version, when he was in Colorado". Nothing at all meaningful.

My husband watched movies on DVD all day in the den, my daughter, son, daughters fiance, and their friend sat in her room playing video games all day, I was in the livingroom back and forth at the computer, and my younger daughter went back and forth between movies with her dad and in her room with her ipod. All us girls were back and forth in the kitchen cooking on things all day. We had a medium sized dinner, not huge like usual. Turkey, mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, brown gravy, green beans, corn on the cob, green bean casserolle, sweet potato casserolle, devilled eggs, rolls, apple pie, pumpkin roll. Nobody here likes dressing or cranberry sauce, so I just didn't make it.

When supper was ready, we ate. Then cleaned up after over the space of about two hours, until all the food was put up and the dishes were done and the china and stuff were put back in the china cabinet.

All in all, it was a nice day. We didn't feel the need to try and force things, just go with the flow and enjoy it and make a big meal to concentrate on and eat.

Frances

I love to talk and I talk at the table, whilst eating. Nothing makes me more uncomfortable than sitting with someone or a group of people and no-one is saying anything (although I don't like to talk much when there are more than 3 people there). The last time I was at my BIL's house, for Boxing Day, the meal was like that and I felt physically sick. On Christmas Day, there will be my husband, daughter and parents sitting at the table. All the adults talk a lot, me the most, but not chit-chat, it's productive conversation. I'm probably in the minority on here, but I know there are a few other misunderstood extroverts, like me.

I'm glad the Holiday is over. Don't like holidays. I wanted to get groceries yesterday and the store was closed. D:

I spent all yesterday wanting to call my Mom to wish her a good holiday, but have a hard time doing it when I know she's be having the grand kids underfoot with the accompanying chaos. Now I can breathe deep and try again, when I can actually have a "real" conversation.

Maybe I'll go to the mall today for a hot minute, to people watch. Black Friday. Greed as a contagion infecting all the Americans. It reminds me of "28 Days Later."