Trouble in Paradise
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
**Kuus**
Will you pretty-please-cherry-on-top tell the death candle story?
I agree with everything that muddled said. You should listen to her. -ESDReturns
Re: **Kuus**
Oh come on, don't deprive all these newbies (and Muddled) of one of the greatest stories in the history of the Nest!
It's super snowy here so it LOOKS like Kuusmas. Isn't that enough?
please please please PLEASE?
You don't want to make the bunnies sad, do you?
I just died of cuteness. My spirit floated away from my body and is typing this message.
That little guy on the top is adorable, isn't he?
Okay, if it's for the bunnies.
So, Mr. Kuus and I are American and all, but of Slovak descent. Not, like, seven generations ago Slovak, but recent enough that my grandparents speak/spoke English as a second language, and rather poorly at that. And we both grew up in the same little Slovak enclave of a neighborhood, so we're all a little more mired than you'd think in the old ways and traditions.
Anyway, the first year we were dating, he invited me to Christmas Eve dinner at his parents' house. For those of you who aren't Slovak, trust me when I say that no self-respecting Slovak gives a damn about Christmas Day - it's all about Christmas Eve, and all the foods and traditions for the holiday represent the bitterness of life. When my family was thrown out of their own extended family (long and rigoddamndiculous story full of jackassery) and had to do their own smaller Christmas Eve celebrations, my grandmother decided to get rid of all foods and rituals that represent life's bitterness, keeping only the buttery goodness of homemade pierogies, and replace everything else with pie, so while I had heard of the more traditional celebration, I'd never actually experienced it.
Mr. Kuus's family has been in the US slightly longer than mine, so naturally they're more nostalgic for the old world and want to make everything Uber-Slovak (my grandparents have always maintained that if the old world were so great, then they wouldn't have left). Knowing that, he warned me that his family's celebration was a little more traditional than mine. So we got the honey blessing on the forehead (like last week's ashes, but stickier and more annoying), dipped the oplatki (sp?) in honey and made sure we all took a bite at the same time, and all ate horrifying pickled fish and sauerkraut soup while seated around a large, garish Jesus candle. Not my cup of tea, but whatever.
Then dinner ended, and it was a whole new ball of wax. A silence fell over the table, and MIL (well, she was just bf's mom at the time, but you know) explained for the newcomers (just me) that now is the time when the family matriarch, defined as the oldest woman, blows out the candle, and whoever the smoke goes toward will be dead by next Christmas Eve. You know I was seated right across from her, so my eyes just couldn't slide sideways enough. Everyone silently prayed that it wouldn't be them, the smoke somehow managed to go straight up (means no one dies), and we were all able to leave the table.
Later several family members took me aside and explained that the Death Candle hadn't always been the way it is now. Apparently when MIL's mom was the matriarch, if the smoke went toward a window or door, then someone at the table would be dead by next year, but you don't know who. And when MIL's grandmother was the one, no one was to die, but someone would just eat dinner somewhere else next year. Following the logical progression, when SIL becomes matriarch, the tradition will be for her to be able to kill whoever the smoke goes toward before the night is over.
There was also an incident where my parents attended, and MIL was so upset that she wasn't the oldest woman that she changed it so that if my mother blew out the candle, she'd be the one to die. I stole the candle after that.
I am dying. Thank you so much for sharing.
Has the death candle been replaced or are you safe for the time being?
So, how did she end up being your MIL with all of her crazy? Didn't someone think an intervention would be appropriate?
LOL.
I love this story so, so much.
So, do you still have the candle?
You stole her drama. So sad.
A lot of Slovak celebratory traditions are actually about predicting when people are going to die. That isn't technically one of them, but there is a NYE one where unless you do things a very specific way, the first person to enter your house after the new year starts will die before the year is through. My family doesn't do that one, either, but a lot of families do.
MIL is extra crazy, though. Remind me to tell you the panty sniffing story sometime. But I do have both a good sense of humor and a charitable streak that compels me to hang around craziness just to tell you all the inevitable stories, plus Mr. Kuus is really, really cute, so I married in. There was sort of an intervention, in that when I stole the candle I specifically said "This is crazy, and I'm going to take your candle and put it where you'll never find it." I'm nothing if not true to my word.
Yikes! I might avoid going to anyone's house until mid-March or so. You know, just to make sure.
You can NOT drop a line about a panty sniffing story and then not follow through. Spill it!
I'm pretty sure you're the only one who hasn't heard this one, but I'll retell it anyway. It has nothing to do with being Slovak, and everything to do with being crazy.
So Mr. Kuus and I started dating in college, and as it's pretty standard for Slovaks to live with their parents until marriage (okay, maybe it's a little to do with being Slovak, but that's as far as it goes) even including college, we both commuted. And you know what dating in college is like. So one time, when I was in Mr. Kuus's room, I misplaced my underwear and couldn't find them before going home. I didn't think much of it one way or another until about a week later, when his mom pulls me aside and tells me that she looked inside my dirty underwear and saw some cervical mucus that led her to believe that I might have a yeast infection.
...
...
...
Those ellipses represent the awkward silence while my mind tried (and, for a while, failed) to process what I was hearing. When it hit me, I brayed like a mule and just could. not. stop. laughing. Naturally this brought the rest of the family into the room to find out just what was so damn funny. Imagine me choking out "...she! ...looks inside! ...people's dirty! ...UNDERWEAR!" while clutching my sides and guffawing. The menfolk just stood there looking uncomfortable, for the most part, except Mr. Kuus, who was like "She did WHAT?!" And poor SIL just sighed, all unsurprised, and said "Yeah, she does that. That's how I found out that I had a trich infection."
(I didn't have a yeast infection, in case anyone was wondering. It was just your garden variety sticky cervical fluid.)
It was my fault, sorry. I mentioned it in chat as being one of the nest stories I will never forget and muddled had never heard it. It's always best coming from you.
I love when Kuus re-tells these stories. It's like storytelling night at TIP camp.
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Currently Reading: Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes