Just in Time for Thanksgiving . . . Dysfunctional Family Bingo

By Meredith O'Brien/Picket Fence Post 

When I first started blogging in 2005, I dedicated an entry to something called, "Dysfunctional Family Bingo," a term coined by a Massachusetts psychologist in 2000 who was trying to come up with a funny way to cope with the inevitable madness that occurs during big holiday dinners.

I completely adore the concept.

Dysfunctional Family Bingo is like a regular Bingo game, except that the squares are filled with crazy things that could happen during a holiday dinner (there's an ugly argument over politics, your kid breaks a family heirloom that was put in the middle of the coffee table, someone gets food poisoning, etc.). The idea is that you and your snarky friends print out the cards and secretly play along during a holiday event, like Thanksgiving. If one poor soul gets "Bingo" by unfortunately experiencing enough outrageous moments to win, that person calls the others and earns the group's sympathy and perhaps earns a free drink the following week when you all get together to tell Thanksgiving dinner tales.

It's a subversive way to recognize that there's no such thing as a "perfect" holiday dinner, no matter what Martha Stewart may tell you. Everybody's got at least one loony story to tell.

So in honor of Thanksgiving and the stress that sometimes accompanies big family dinners -- whether or not you're hosting -- I've made up a 2008 Dysfunctional Family Bingo card. If you're expecting a particularly stressful Thanksgiving dinner this week, print it out and play along. Hopefully you won't win.

To see my 2008 Dysfunctional Family Bingo card, click here to go to the Picket Fence Post blog.