Thanksgiving Dilemma

One of the reasons I married my husband was because of his great extended family. The first time I met them was 18 years ago on Thanksgiving; I think it was the best Thanksgiving I ever had. I was welcome into his family with open arms, like I had been around for years and I was everyone's best friend. We fried turkey, ate a huge meal and later, after football, we broke out the cards and played Tripoli. I really looked forward to Thanksgiving with them because it was everything my family was not.

Well needless to say, things have changed over the past 18 years, one cousin moved away, my sister-in-law and her family moved about three years ago and the kicker, summer 04 the cousins who have hosted Thanksgiving for the past 11 years filed for divorce after 20 years of marriage. Last year Thanksgiving was so not fun - the divorcing cousins were there and no one knew what to say or how to act, my mother-in-law didn't show up because she was uncomfortable around them, and they (the cousins) invited all these extra people that I had no idea who they were. I know it's their house and they can invite who (or is it whom, I never know) ever they want but it kind of turned into a free for all for a bunch of neighborhood teenagers. Nobody bothered to introduce the hanger-on-ers. I introduced myself to a few but they so were not interested in talking to a 30 something mom. After dinner all the people either retired to the garage to watch football and smoke or to the patio to chat and smoke. I don't like football and don't smoke so there was not a lot going on for me. I spent the afternoon coloring and watching a cartoon with my daughter waiting for halftime so we could leave. Last year I promised myself I would not go back because I had such a miserable time.

Fast forward to this year-said cousins sent a invitation for Thanksgiving and there is my dilemma-since I don't have any family in Dallas to speak of- should I just suck it up and go to the cousin's house for the sake of my husband? After all it's his family and I think he would like to see them, truth be told, they live 15 miles from here and the last time we saw them was last Thanksgiving. I would much rather stay home and have my own Thanksgiving than be subjected to five or six hours of total boredom. My husband is sweet and says he'll do whatever I want to do but I'm pretty sure he'd like to see the cousins.

What to do...what to do...Thanksgiving now sucks.