Thanksgiving Weekend

We haven’t properly established a Thanksgiving that is always any one particular thing. Some things are consistent of course. The older girls like to help the kids make gumdrop turkeys. And the three of them have started doing pies with me – while we officially break out the Christmas music -- the night before Thanksgiving. And it’s Mike’s favorite holiday. He loves getting the newspaper that day, turning on the parade and the dog show, and letting me get out for a run (where I inevitably see groups playing football at every park I pass – no matter how cold it is).

But some years we join my mom – with whichever siblings happen to also be joining her that year; and some years we join Mike’s family -- with whatever siblings happen to be joining them that year; and, in recent years, we’ve even done some Thanksgivings on our own (which, we really quite enjoy!). So, the details change a bit from year to year.

This year my mom flew to Texas to be with my sister Shannon’s and my brother Aaron’s families. And we joined Mike’s family.

Mike’s mom had reserved a church gym – which turned out to be great for the kids -- as they had plenty of room to run about, play games (even a few rounds of Lightning were played once tables were moved a bit), and even use Legos! (Mike’s brother brought an entire kiddy pool full of Legos. I don’t know how he managed to carry it to his car, but Jesse in particular was in heaven!)

We brought the pies we’d made the night before (to join with the pies others had brought) as well as mashed potatoes and gravy. (And here we must mention that Goldie peeled and cut ALL of the potatoes! And we probably did over 20 lbs. She made the gravy too!)

And then . . . I snuck back home a bit early, turned on Christmas music, and cleaned the house. (Perhaps not the most Thanksgivingy thing to do. But we’d decided earlier to leave for Bear Lake Thanksgiving night. And the kids had packed that morning, but I can’t bear to leave on a vacation . . . knowing I will have a messy house to come home to. And, there is nothing so nice as cleaning a house . . . when nobody is there messing it up at the same time. So I cleaned up, Mike and the kids returned home, and off we went.)

Here was an email I sent to Mike’s family that summed up our weekend:

Shortly after the party, we loaded up the van and came to our cabin. The kids are currently out trying to sled (even though we brought no snow pants and even though the snow isn’t truly deep enough for any real sledding). Anders has remained inside however and has been talking to me for the last twenty minutes straight about the marvel of how it occurred to him to build a yeti out of Legos when initially he’d only intended to draw a yeti (and when he was actually rather tired and wasn’t sure he had the energy to carry out any yeti plans).

Yesterday we drove to “the big city” (Montpelier)— certain that with it being Black Friday it would be a happening scene. “Happening” turned out to be a craft fair, Family Dollar, and a stop at the one small pizza place in town. Not even the Butch Cassidy museum was open. (Though the kids loved imagining the faithful officer who, the sign told us, borrowed a bicycle and pedaled with all of his might after Butch and his men — who easily outdistanced him.)

Anyway, love you all,
Nancy

And love to you all, blog readers! Farewell. For now.