The cray-cray is strong

So. I sent potential guests for Thanksgiving an email to gauge people's risk tolerance etc.

To be honest, it was a ruse. I already knew my sister, mom, and BIL would not be coming, and AC is working that evening, but I had gotten ZERO traction asking my MIL or my spouse for a rundown on SIL's behaviour so a general email (having asked AC and sis to answer to get the dialog going) seemed like a good idea.

This is what I said:

I want to talk about everyone's relative risk of Covid-19 exposure since I am leaning towards entirely cancelling Thanksgiving unless everyone is willing to be open about their risk of exposure. Everything of course contingent on WA state guidelines.

SIL responded saying she would be there, that family was SO important, that she'd told her son that this was happening and he was SO excited.

Now if we cancel, we're disappointing the kid. What part of "I leaning towards cancelling?" did she not understand?

And this hot mess: (redacted nephew's full name)

I would also add that due to the stress and anxiety that we all feel, I would really like to not have a lot of conversations about Covid at the dinner table. I would prefer that we discuss other things. I do not want R to over hear any “frightening“ stories of COVID that might scare him. Right now he is in a good place with it and does not seem overly anxious about it and I want to keep it that way. He understands it and I have talked to him about the science of it, but I do not want to dwell on it or give him a reason to be scared once they start integrating back to school in person. I would prefer that we keep the conversations happy and light, and not stressful. I hope that makes sense the way that I am describing that. It has been one hell of a year for all of us. This would be a time for us to laugh and have a great time and blow off some steam, and celebrate. R has matured a lot, especially over the past year, and I want to continue to facilitate his growth, and I think that family events like this are so incredibly important to that. I am willing to take the calculated risk, and I just hope that everybody else is safe between now and then. I look forward to seeing everybody that can make it!

As dh said "I am not going to promise to censor anyone at the dinner table, hello?"

I mean, WTF? Is it just me, my sister, daughter, and spouse who think this is a bit beyond the pale?

Nephew is not, btw, the delicate flower she portrays. He's been evaluated over and over (because she thinks he's disturbed and/or has learning disabilities or something) and each time the evals come back saying nope, completely normal, bright kid.

Anyhow.

WA state did come out with recommendations today, and they're pretty much eat outside (yeah, no), stay within your bubble (our bubble is sister, BIL, and mom), or better yet, figure out a better way to do Thanksgiving this year.

So blah.

I'm going to plan on making dinner for everyone and just delivering food to MIL and SIL. They can eat together if they want (since R travels between the two households, they're already a bubble.)