Here's hoping your turkey day was as steeped in tradition as mine. On Thanksgiving Eve, Jason and I like to watch Thankskilling, a fabulous little film about a killer turkey, to put us in the holiday mood. We prefer to spend our Thanksgiving morning bickering (in my defense, he tried to talk to me before my first cup of coffee, which is never, ever, advisable). Then we head over to my mother's house to share our testy attitudes with family.
The house was about 100 degrees, which is, of course, tradition. I've learned long ago to wear a summer t-shirt under my sweater for Thanksgiving Day at my parents' home. Besides Mom's tendency to keep the house balmy, she also has two ovens and six stove burners going all day for this holiday, so it's to be expected.
Dinner was late, which was also to be expected. If the year ever comes that we actually eat at the time my mother suggests we're going to sit down to dinner, the whole family would be worried that something was wrong with her. In the meantime, we ate appetizers, visited, I made my sister give me a haircut in Mom's bathroom, my sister's sister-in-law's two-year-old performed a rousing rendition of "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep," and Dad gave us a detailed description of how, exactly, to shoot, pluck, boil and stuff a wild turkey. Good times.
We left Mom's after the meal to head over to my sister-in-law's for dessert. Though I was stuffed to the gills, I managed to make room for two slices of pie, cookies, and a cupcake. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by not sampling all of the desserts, of course. It was altruistic of me, really.
We visited some more, then my sister-in-law, her sisters-in-law, Cousin Carrie, and I started fighting over the Black Friday flyers. As you know, gentle reader, most of my gifts are specially handmade this year, but it's still fun to look at the good deals. This, of course, was a bad idea.
Jason and I spotted pillows for only $2.99 each at JC Penney. For some reason, Jason's pillows are all lumpy and deformed, something we'd discussed only yesterday. Why was this happening to only his pillows? More importantly, how could we resist such a deal? Plus, the mall was practically on our way home. Would it really hurt to pop in, pick up some pillows, and leave?
The answer is yes. Yes it would. Something we should have remembered from our last Thanksgiving evening shopping excursion two years ago, when a complete stranger threatened our lives after we snagged the last can of holiday pine-scented Febreze off the shelf at Walmart. However, memories fade over time, and we stood in line at Penney's wondering why, exactly, we'd thought this was a good idea. Of course, since we were already at the mall, we agreed that it made perfect sense to shoot over to Target for their amazing pre-Black Friday sale on cat litter (30% off! How could we go wrong?) Four hours later, we'd made friends with the couple behind us in line, fended off a rather ballsy line-cutter, wept, flossed our teeth after the Target employees forced the checkout line to wind down the dental care aisle, and watched Thankskilling on Jason's iPhone when the lady four people ahead of us demanded a price check on her coordinated flannel jammie set. We crawled through the front door, tired and bedraggled from our day, at about midnight.
Overall, it was a long day, filled with family, food, and poor shopping choices, much as our Thanksgiving Day goes every year. I was just happy that we got home in time for me to get a good three hours of sleep before I go out shopping on Black Friday with my mother and sister.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Photo purloined from www.tossermag.com
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