Family musings: Shut up!

I said before that I will post about my family every once in a while. This might turn out to be really boring to read about but we’ll see how this plans out.

“Everyone shut up and listen to me!”… that was me… during most of my time living at home. Now do not go and get the wrong impression here…this did not mean that I was upset or angry or in despair (weeell… I was a teenager once so that statement might be debatable). I am the youngest in a very loud family and how else was I going to get any words in? I just had to become the loudest of them all and when that didn’t work I had to shout to get all to listen to me. Probably because I had something extremely important to say… most of the time…

Our family dinners (or breakfasts or lunches…) were always interesting. Many discussions going on at the same time… never really with the person next to you..mostly with someone across somewhere. The volume was normally very high, the discussions varied and quite entertaining. I could never (and to some extent still don’t) understand why anyone would like to have their dinners in silence. The only time when we had any meals in silence it was because my parents had a row and the atmosphere was silently tense.

One would think that things changed after everyone grew up and my parents getting old… but no, my parents are still the loudest people I know. Whenever we all get together (not very often unfortunately) we keep the neighborhood up. People have actually been under the impression that we are all having a massive argument as everyone is so loud. I take it down as pure envy as they do not always understand everything, since my parents are known to talk both in German and in Swedish…mixing the languages up like mad (any linguist would shudder and faint). A bit hard to eavesdrop when you don’t understand all.

The last time we all came together was at my mum’s 70th birthday…we had a party at my brother’s house and everyone was there. My brother and his family, my sister and hers, my aunt and uncle and everyone’s partners plus a few cats, dogs and horses. It was fun! People from all ages, from 73 to 2. There was singing (yes including to loud German umpa-bumpa music where my dad and uncle excelled), dance offs, outdoor games and lots of food and drink. I laughed the entire day and night. It was loud and a bit mental…and there was plenty of moments when I had to stand up while laughing and say:

“Shut up and listen to me!”