We saw the parents last weekend, so we are all alone for the weekend. (yipee!) It will entail lots of food and movies and TiVo and nowhere to be. That’s a tradition I can get behind!

I’m spending Thanksgiving with my cousin in Hilton Head, and there will be lots and lots of eating. And if it means I don’t fit into my size 5s afterward, SO FUCKING BE IT and pass the pie. Have fun!

I live in a tiny town (6500) with Junior in a school (3rd gr) of K-8th grade and a total of 400 students, and still you can see all the effects on materialism, modernism, etc… but I dont think its as bad. I dont hear of 3rd or 4th graders bringing pocket knives to school like at his last one, or “Mom, whats weed?”, because, yep, I did hear that one. Gah. I like my little moo-town.

As for the weekend, we leave tomorrow to drive to LA (7 hours), spending 3 glorious nights in some warmth and the fun that is known as Universal Studios. Then we drive to Tucson, AZ where we will cavort with my in-laws. They arent too shabby. Its Juniors first time at the in-laws (his step-dad), but he loves them so. We will probably venture down to Tombstone and watch me some shoot-um-up style wrangling and fighting. It promises to be an excellent trip… except for the 15 hour drive home.

No such thing as Thanksgiving around these parts. However this weekend (even though I know you didn’t ask), I have two weddings in one day. I’m not sure how we’ll swing it, but I’m hoping we’ll be able to make it to both dinners to get our money-spent-on-present’s worth.

I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving as I’m in NZ…but its me and Nate’s 3 year anniversary tomorrow so apparently he wants to go to a gig instead of taking me to DINNER *sulk*

That Dove supermodel thing would make me feel better, if I hadn’t been to see strippers lately. The strippers were SOOOOOOOOO hot, and they were REAL and LIVE and stuff. The only thing that makes me feel better is that they invited me up on stage to dance with them. A small comfort *sniff*

i’m hosting thanksgiving this year, and with all the stuff and personal errands i have to run, i decided to take the entire week off. so instead of worrying about how in the hell i’ll manage to find the time reheat a pre-made turkey and open a can of cranberry sauce, i’ll be lounging around, brining free-range turkey and making fucking pies from scratch. woo! i can totally kick martha stewart’s ass.

Thanksgiving = the Meeting of the Parents. Dun dun DUUUUUUN.

going to atlanta! for FREE! my company needs someone to deliver a presentation to the client. and i don’t even have to present anything. seriously, i only have to HAND OVER some presentation books. and i get to stay the whole weekend, on the company’s dime and visit friends.

Let’s see… We’ll either be having dinner with friends in Bellevue or going to my in-laws’ place in Idaho. This entails braving Snoqualmie Pass late at night Wednesday or very early Thursday morning because they want to have dinner at NOON which would be fine if we didn’t have a six hour drive if traffic is light and the weather is good.

Jerks.

I’m hoping for a heavy snowfall in the mountains so I can say, “Awww, I’m so sorry we couldn’t make it! We didn’t want boulders falling on our heads as we slide on the ice into a snowbank.”

I’m cooking for six people, which doesn’t sound like much until you consider that my kitchen features exactly one square foot of counter space. No, seriously. I’m going to use the top of the fridge for prep work when that one square foot gets filled up.

And since we live in Manhattan and do not have a dining room and therefore a dining room table, I’m going to go out this weekend and purchase a folding table of some sort from Staples or similar, which will reside under our bed when not set up in the middle of the living room for such occasions. It’s going to be harried and crazy, especially since working is EXTREMELY harried and crazy right now, but I’m excited. My family has great fun together and I love to play hostess, and I’ll get to smooch all over my very smushable 6-month old nephew to boot.

I love holidays. LOVE.

And by the way, my parents still live in the quaint little Southern town where I grew up, and it has become a drug den of sorts — meth labs, that kind of thing — since I graduated high school. Small towns are in no way immune to messiness, and sometimes I think it’s amplified because the kids are really bored and there are lots of wide open spaces for them to find destructive things to do.

Oh, man, do I ever love that video. I watched it like 10 times, and then sent it to pretty much everyone I know. Love. it.

We’re going to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving. I’m bringing a chocolate-crusted pumpkin cheesecake that is so peculiar and so delicious, people have been known to sneak back into the kitchen later to scoop out handfuls from the pan.

Swistle, I’d kill for that recipe. Do you share?

I second that, what Sundry said…. Swistle, you MUST SHARE!!!!! :)

The Hulk and I are taking the train from Denver to SF to visit family, friends, and have an all-around fabulous time. We usually fly but there were no cheap plane tickets to be had for this turkey day, so we decided we’d take the whole week and see the west from a POV that most people don’t get to see.

I’ll probably be doing most of the cooking at my mom’s house, and I’m excited to see all my relatives and their significant others. Also, I am excited about sushi and good Thai food, as those are two things in short supply here in flyover land.

For real… Chocolate pumpkin… holy cow! Please, please share!!

As for Thanksgiving plans, my mother in law is coming, along with my sister-in-law, her husband, their kid, and another kid who is not theirs and I only met once and didn’t really like, so am praying she is not a brat on this trip. And? We’re all going to Disneyland!! That is the joy of living in Southern California and owning an annual passport to the parks – people want to come visit us, and we don’t have to deal with Chicago winters. We do, however, have to deal with at least one lecture for not venturing out there to see the whole family out there in Chicago, blah blah, how could we not show our love by braving the snow, this is FAMILY after all! And hopefully that will only last a short time, and I can spend my time riding Space Mountain with the kids and eating pumpkin pie at the Blue Bayou Restaurant. Mmmm.

Also, I’ll have to work a little bit, but it’s for my new petsitting job, which is actually pretty fun.

I am with you on the “how is it already Thanksgiving?!” sentiments, btw! I mean, seriously. How?

The man, pets, and I are going to hole up, eat Stovetop, take naps, and watch football. I think. I hope. We needed a year off.

Wait. You have Xbox in Washington? That really fucks up our plans to move there, I gotta say.

This is my first Thanksgiving since my divorce. My sister does not seem to grasp that I went from a 5 bedroom house to a 1 bedroom apartment. She still thinks I should host 8 people for dinner. I’m hosting right to a cheesy Thanksgiving buffet. Hell I dont even have 8 places to sit…

We’re going to Norm’s (we never close!) for their $8.99 Thanksgiving dinner. Just me and the bf. No cooking, no cleanup, and the servers there are always so nice. If they have to work that day, I will go there, buy the food, and tip them $10 or $20 for making it possible for me to eat turkey and mashed potatoes without cleaning up.

Also–living in a rural town or out in the country won’t shield Riley, unfortunately. I grew up in podunk Michigan (home of the Frontier Days!) and the cruelty and issues are just more redneck-fied. It’s in those communities that you’re more likely to run into the racists (the KKK had a rally in my town when I was in HS), religious freaks, incest and pro-abstinence folk with knocked up teenage kids. Really, not so sheltered, just different types of bad for him to learn/be exposed to. Think Footloose, eh?

The family is coming down… my parents and brother and sister-in-law (awesome), G’s sister and her fiance (pretty cool), and my mother-in-law (eh, not so much). The other sister-in-law, G’s youngest married sister, will not be making it because “Thanksgiving means less to her and so she’ll spend that holiday with her in-laws and Christmas with her family.” Our hard-and-fast law is: If you want to see us at Christmas, then you come to see us, we don’t travel for Christmas especially with a child. So, that means that G’s entire family – minus the one sister’s finance – is coming here for Christmas (and the engaged SIL’s birthday, which is Christmas Eve). So everyone’s coming for Christmas, on Christmas Eve, and leaving Christmas afternoon which is fine but who do I cook the roast for? The three of us?

How do I get myself into these connundrums?

Anyway, back to my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving…..
My mom’s coming Tuesday, my dad’s coming out of the woods on Wednesday and coming here, all the siblings are coming Thursday along with my friend P and her son D and possibly her ex-Jehovah’s witness big-D. We’ll take a nice walk, perhaps before dinner, perhaps after, perhaps both. We’ll have herb-roasted turkey with shallot pan sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, creamed onions, mashed turnip (my dad’s the only one that eats this), rolls, wine, garlic green beans, and pumpkin, pecan and apple pies. Ah, crapulence. How I love thee. Then, after dinner, while everyone is cleaning up except me and my mom, I’ll go upstairs and pass out.
God, I love this holiday.

I’m hoping to get through Thanksgiving without having to drive down to Tacoma and visit my sister and her husband (who has only three brain cells left and they fight with each other, the brain cells, not my sister). My husband is hoping for head at half-time.

Let’s see…in our house, we will have our Early Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday evening, just the four of us (me, my man, baby Wren and big sis Kira). Thursday morning is Macy’s-Parade-watching on TV, then a three hour round trip to take Kira to her dad’s place for the holiday (as it is every Thanksgiving). Husband, me and Wren will then ride another hour to his sister’s place for the actual Thanksgiving dinner (I’m ambivalent on how much I want to do this), then an hour ride home, because I have to work the next day (Health Care! We Never Close!), and possibly also work on Saturday. Yuck. Somewhere in there, I’d like to spend a bit of time reading, and working on scrapbooks, and maybe even doing some glasswork, but we’ll see. Saturday I get to pick my older daughter back up from her dad.

“Country kids probably hurry through their cow-milking chores to pulverize each other on Halo in their wireless-networked barns.”

::snort:: You kill me. :) I grew up on a dairy in Texas, and we didn’t even get freaking PONG until I was almost done with high school. But thanks for that hilarious image. :) I recommend growing up in the country, though small towns sorta suck it. They’re really gossipy and all up in your bidness, yo. You definitely grow up with a different set of values, though. Either that, or it was the times, and they have indeed a-changed. (though, I totally don’t have that keeping up with the joneses thing, and i’ve never been much for standing on ceremony either, and I *know* that’s because I grew up in the country, where everyone is more or less on equal footing)

I add my voice to the clamor for Swistle’s choco-pumpkin cheesecake. :)

I get home (LA) from Paris on Sunday, so I’m not sure what we’re doing, but I will assume driving out to TO to The Boyfriend’s brother’s house for a homecooked dinner with all of his family, which always proves way more delicious than it has a right to be, and I always eat way too much, solely because there’s an abundance of ridiculously delicious food. That, or staying home and totally continuing the ritual of re-acquaintanceship after a long absence. ;)

Thursday we are heading to my aunt and uncle’s house, where I have spent every Thanksgiving of my life except one, and where there will be approximately 1,000 people this year. This is my son’s first Thanksgiving and it should be interesting now that separation/stranger anxiety is setting in. I anticipate no nap whatsoever until we get in the car to go home. I have no idea what we’re doing Friday – staying the hell away from all retail establishments, I expect. Saturday is dinner with the in-laws in Manassas (Sundry, aren’t you from there? Or lived there once? Or something?) – again with the lack of napping, I’m sure. My SIL hasn’t seen her nephew since he was 2 months old (she lives in KY) so it’ll be fun to watch them get acquainted. Again with the stranger anxiety, hooray! I’m actually looking forward to the weekend. It’s going to be a lot of traveling (though thankfully no more than 2 hours at a time) and a lot of rolling with the punches, but Tommy’s a very sociable little guy, and he’ll have plenty of people to flirt with. And I could really go for some pumpkin pie.

P.S. Hi, Christine!

The Dove video is freaking amazing, huh? Makes you feel a lot better about yourself. :)
For Thanksgiving we’re going to my in-laws, which I’m actually happy about. It’ll be a nice, mellow time (except for the boyo misbehaving and being crazy, but that would happen anywhere we went). And I’m baking a couple pies, dammit, even though they’re not the many-pie eaters that my family is. I will not be stuck with only one pie choice!

Car ride with toddler + benadryl 1 hr before leaving = bliss. It’s okay. Really. Xanax? Not so much. But benadryl? I bet you can find an itchy rash somewheres.

GIRL!? What choo thankin? Forget benadryl (sorry Jake) DRIVE AT NIGHT!!! That’s what we ALWAYS do with the kids. SO what if you get in late, at least you’re not pulling your hair out!

I’m studying for finals in school all weekend most likely. Yuck.

Dinner Thursday with about 30 of my closest relatives at Grandma’s on Captiol Hill. (And there are even 8 people not coming this year!) There will be as always a mad dash for food and talking wit our mouths full. Friday= NO SHOPPING whatsoever. Saturday and Sunday out in POrt Ludlow with the BF’s parents for another celebration of Thanksgiving ( he works Thursday and Friday, and the other siblings are outta town!) So, walks on the beach, cozy fires and reading of books should await as well.

Normally I go down to my mother’s house — six hours away, two toddlers in the car, FUN (by which I totally mean “hell-on-wheels”) — and see my sisters and their children, but not this year. No.

These past several months, one of my sisters, along with her kids, have lived here with us. It’s been misery. She’s still going down to Mom’s. I am staying here and enjoying four solid days of having to take care of no one’s children except my own and watching my husband stroll about in his underwear. DOMESTIC BLISS. I think I will do a low-key, scaled-down version of Thanksgiving dinner but not anything fancy (I am still, however, waiting for that chocolate pumpkin recipe! ;)).

I’ve had all the family togetherness that I can take for a long, long time to come.

As a recent escapee from a rural small town (6500) just on the other side of the mountains from you, I can tell you with 100% confidence that raising a child with the whole “simple mindset” is the way to go. Granted, I’m only 22, but I would NEVER want to have grown up somewhere else. My parents did an excellent job making sure I knew about the world, but growing up in a place where the right things are valued has given me a unique heart in today’s world. The first school shooting in the nation was only 20 miles away, so we weren’t naive or oblivious by any means, we just have the advantage of being those down-to-earth, kind-hearted types that you seldom hear about anymore. Not that everyone is this way, because every small town comes ripe with gossip and cliques, but I personally think that the environment is ideal.
Because you know you wanted to hear my two cents.

We are heading to Thailand on our honeymoon! Although I will say that the daggers that shot out of my mother-in-law’s eyes when I said I booked the tickets over the holiday hurt a little bit (I am taking her baby away from her on Thanksgiving? Horrors!)

In keeping with my do-everything-different-in-Hawaii theme, I’m not doing anything significant on Thanksgiving this year. Spending it solo, since I keep realizing I’d rather spend time by myself (which is company I enjoy) than with people I don’t really know or connect with, just to have other bodies around. I’m thinking I shall make some Sove Top Stuffing and eat a turkey sandwhich. My good buddy Jen, back in Denver, is going to host a huge Thanksgiving dinner in May, when I make my return trip home, so that’s when I’ll get the full fix. 85 degrees and hot hot hot doesn’t really *feel* like Thanksgiving to me, anyway.

That Dove video damn near killed me the first time I saw it. Oh, and as a country kid who grew up working on dairy farms, kids were, indeed, just as vicious. And truthfully, I hightailed my ass out of there the first second I could to a big city, whereas my friends who grew up near big cities stayed closer to home. So not to be selfish, but near a biggish beautiful city is extra insurance that Riley (and future Sundryspawn) could potetially stay closer to mama. If, you know, that’s what you want, or if you don’t leave him at home with the dog first.

Re: Thanksgiving, my in-laws are coming to our house, and only three of them eat turkey or, well, eat anything really, and since I can’t cook, we be catering! It’s all ordered. I go, pick it up, come home, stuff my face and clean. Whoo hoo. No traveling, no fuss. And there will be tryptophan-induced naps. But mostly, I’m excited because my nine-month-old nephew is part of the package, and will be staying with us for a whole week and I want to smell his head.

We’re in Hawaii too (same island as Alex- small world) and I had tentatively planned to go to Texas to spend Thanksgiving with my family, until my husband, who couldn’t make the trip because of work obligations, gave me a reality check on 13 hours of flying alone with 5 kids (including two year old and nursing four month old) to land where it is cold and then navigate a rental minivan or SUV over icy freeways when I haven’t driven on anything remotely resembling a freeway in two years. So, staying here it is!
Last year we attended a huge dinner at a neighbor’s house with a wide variety of friends, and it was fun, but this year we are in need of some serious relaxation and are planning on heading to a nice resort for a high quality buffet followed by beach and/or pool time (by which I mean the kind of pool which has a sandy beach area for the kids, waterslides, built in hot tubs, waterfalls, etc.- maybe even spending the night/a couple of days depending on what rates/availability I can find over the holiday weekend. There are some advantages to living here!

Seriosly! Girls! So easy to fuck up! But at the same time, teaching a boy to do his own laundry, refrain from objectifying women, and generally not be That Asshole when he grows up is probably just as challenging. It’s a tough world we live in, with all maner of indecent things so easily accessable. I think you and JB will raise one awesome boy and someday some girl is going to thank you.

I grew up in a farm town in Oregon populated by 750 people (Aurora. Woot!) and let me tell you, you wouldn’t be escaping much. There are just as much drugs (Meth! The best!), drinking and uninformed sex as in the city, but throw in some Bored Teenagers With Cars and you are in trouble. (Also: ‘Values’ seem to be very loosley interpreted these days)

That said, (and the 13 year old me would strangle me now for saying this) but growing up without a lot of money and subsequently “things”, I think has made me less of a materialistic person now.

Maybe it’s not so much your enviornment but how you live your daily life? I think you can be down to earth, honest, and unmaterialistic wherever you live. Hopefully being a good example, talking honestly and openly and trying to teach them to make good decisions on their own will keep them on the straight.

Anyway, we’re actually hosting Thanksgiving for my family. At. My. House. For the first time. I think this means I’m actually a grown up now. They are all driving down from Portland to my house in Oakland and I will be hosting a dinner for 13 and have at least four extras people sleeping in my apartment. Ooooh so stressed, I’m already having anxiety dreams that I forgot to hide our vibrator or buy any groceries. I don’t know how Thanksgiving got here so soon either.

My mom, sister, brother-in-law, nephew, nephew and niece are coming to my house tomorrow. From Michigan. For a week. We are all staying in my 3 bedroom house. All nine of us. Ten if you count Boo. We will be going to Sea World and LegoLand and the aquarium and on Thanksgiving, we will eat the store-bought already made turkey breast on Chinet Heavy-Duty paper plates. Cuz there’s no way in hell I’m getting stuck doing those dishes. It’s going to be chaos, total chaos – and I’m gonna love every minute of it.

We are having Fiance’s family over for dinner. By “family” I mean his Mother, Brother and any stragglers they happen to pick up along the way. This year we were told to set a place for a woman who lost all the fingers on one hand in a fight with a horse. Sigh. Hopefully I’ll be able to escape shortly after dinner to a friend’s place down the block where there will hopefully be copious amounts of wine and pie.

Speaking of pumpkin pie, have you had the pumpkin cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory? Oh. My. God. It’s like pumpkin pie on steroids – yum! For Thanksgiving, we’ll be at my family’s house on Thursday and then the rest of the long weekend is ours. We may take the boy to see Santa.

The Man is working until 8pm on Thanksgiving, so we’re not doing a damn thing that day, and I imagine dinner will be something imaginative like . . . hamburgers. We’re supposed to be visiting his parents the following weekend, though, so I suppose there could be some belated turkey gorging. As long as I get some pumpkin pie, I really don’t care.

I’m staying home and cooking for 6 people, including my mother-in-law. Maybe I can impress her with chocolate pumpkin pie?

thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. my dad is one of 6 kids, 3 boys and 3 girls, born and raised outside of buffalo, ny. the 3 girls all moved down to washington dc at some point in their lives, while the 3 boys remained in buffalo to raise their families. every thanksgiving, the 3 boys and said families pack up and head down to dc to hang with the 3 girls and their respective husbands. between cousins, spouses, nieces and nephews, in-laws, family friends, boyfriends and girlfriends, kids, etc… the festivities have grown to include somewhere in the vicinity of fifty people. were quite the loud bunch, always willing to set an extra spot at the “table” (its more of a buffet really).

we decided to initiate a new tradition this year and have something of a “themed thanksgiving.” in order to keep things entertaining, weve decided to entitle this the “bad picture thanksgiving” where everyone is to go through their copious family pictures and pick out the worst or silliest pictures of eachother that they can find. we plan to make a makeshift mural of sorts and have a good laugh and everyones expense. should be pretty entertaining.

also, i have lived in the suburbs [born and raised in amherst, ny–safest city in america!] and now reside in nyc. i also spent a fair amount of growing up in “the country’ [my cousins have horses and pigs, their own barn, are active in their ‘future farmers of america’ and regularly show various animals at the state and county fairs!]. there is no escaping the “keeping-up-with-the-joneses” mentality, no finding “the simple life.” all you can do is surround yourself and your family with people with similar values and beliefs and play the role of an active parent. and give your kids lots and lots of love.

On the day itself I go deliver meals to homebound people then have coffee with a friend. Then I go home and cook and eat some stuff and watch cool Thanksgiving movies like Home for the Holidays and Pieces of April. Then the next day I have an Open House at my place, this year will be the second annual. So far one person is coming. Hope that’s not all.

We’re heading over to Minneapolis Wednesday so my husband and son can see the Timberwolves/Knicks game, then a ham dinner at the brother-in-laws. Hopefully my mother-in-law won’t PHYSICALLY ATTACK ME AGAIN. The next day we’ll head over to my parents for the weekend to eat another Thanksgiving dinner. Unless we’re in jail. ;)

I am hosting Thanksgiving at my house for the first time in my life (and I am 49 years old!) Twenty-three people. I am Italian so we always have home-made ravioli as a first course, before the turkey and stuffing and stuff. This causes a lot of plate usage. However, I plan on breaking one tradition. My moms good china and silverware will be staying in the cupboard this year because I am totally using Chinet plates and the fanciest plastic silverware I could find (have you seen that stuff? Its incredible that they can make that stuff look so real!) I just can’t wrap my mind around washing 69 plates and a couple hundred pieces of silverware!
Sundry, I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday.

Hmm… Thanksgiving. Since becoming vegan, this has been an odd holiday for my family. Last year, we took a Tofurkey to her parents house, mostly as a lark. Turned out the thing was absolutely delicious – no joke! A bit funky, but delicious.

This year, we go to Pittsburgh to see my family. Who are very decidedly non-vegan. So we’ll either cart a Tofukey with us, or I’ll make some nice Indian food for my wife, my daughter and I.

RE: Raising girls & self-esteem

My daughter just turned one. I become furious at the thought of society telling my little girl that she has to look/act/think a certain way to be beautiful before she was even out of the womb. My wife gets these feelings of body inadiquacy, and I hate it. To me, my wife is beautiful and I love both of them as they are. I want them to feel as beautiful as I see them. So far, our solution has been to tun off the TV. No cable, nothing while baby girl is up except for an occasional Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD (when she needs dazzled enough for a anil clipping) or an occasional Steelers game (not on too often in Ohio).

It has worked a lot on my wife and I, so hopefully it can help her, too. It’s weird. After you get out of the TV rut (really, it’s odd to think how many appointments I made… with my inanimate TV), you start to notice some weird stuff about society. Like how much food they try to sell you. How many lifestyles they try to sell you.

I guess it’s expected that in a capitalist society, that someone would try to sell you a body image… but for now, I’m keeping my daughter away from it as best I can. And paising her as much as I can (within reason here…. “What GREAT barfing!” Um, no.)

My parents come out from England every Thanksgiving (we’re in Michigan) and cook up a feast. It’s like a traditional English Christmas dinner, but a month early! There will be naps and dog walking and movies to watch (Planes, Trains and Automobiles, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, etc etc). And I’ll start my annual thanksgiving jigsaw puzzle (I’m such an old lady). And then we prepare to head to California for Christmas. good times.

This year I must have lost my ever-loving mind because I am hosting. And I am anal, which means I am making everything and not letting family bring anything. In my defense, my mother tends to cook on the bland side. So much so, that my dad makes pleading eyes at me when discussing food. So mom is allowed to pitch in and help me, but it’s my menu. For one thing – no dreaded rutabegas!! Yuk!!

Overall, I am excited to do it though. The bf and I have never had everyone here for the holidays (we usually do the travelling) so it will be nice to stay put. And not everyone has been to our place yet, so it will be cool to have everyone see where we live. (upstate NY near Albany) It will definitely be cozy as everyone is also staying here, which means there will be aerobed and couch sleeping.

The best part is that one of my guests is a family friend from Ireland. Who got so excited when he found out that he was going to be in the States during thanksgiving that he started researching the holiday. he now knows a lot about pilgrims. (sadly, probably more than I.) We plan on being very “thanksgiving-y” with the Macy’s Parade on the TV and all the proper foods. How a man has gotten by this long in life without ever trying pumpkin pie is enough to make me faint!

First, wow on the little video. Does it make me sad and pathetic if I also got a little weepy? Yes?

And Sweet Jebus, 6 hours with a toddler in a car?

Come to my house for Thanksgiving! There are only two of us plus one cat and a 15 pound turkey.

I love my family and all, but Thansgiving is sort of a huge pain, because we have to go to both my parents and my in-law, who live about 45 minutes away from each other and an hour 1/2/two hours from us. And do half the cooking. So I’ll spend Wednesday afternoon and evening cooking, and then stop by my parents on the way to my in-laws to drop off the food, arrive at my in-laws around 9 am, stay for Thanksgiving #1 (which they conveniently eat at around 1), and then go to my parents, finish the cooking, and eat Thanksgiving #2 (which they conveniently eat around 6).

By the time Thursday night rolls around, I never want to see a piece of turkey again. We could switch off like every normal family does, but that suggestion went over like a ton of bricks a couple of years ago, and this arrangement has its benefits, difficult as that may be to imagine. When I have kids, I’m totally making them all come to me.

I sort of secretly love Thanksgiving anyway.