Putting Out Fires

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Happy Holidays?

It seems like a pretty common theme in the blogosphere today is crabbiness over the impending doom that is the Commercialized Holiday Season. What am I saying? Impending? I meant to say the Season that has already come to a store (probably every store) near you. I've noticed it too, but really I don't mind it this year. Don't know what it is, probably a combination of just being too darn busy to care enough to be pissed off, but mostly I think its because I really thought this year the holidays could be a sad time for us. I'm just so thankful that my mom is alive and on the mend, having kicked the pants off leukemia!

But while everyone is out buying their Christmas presents a month and a half early (shame on you if you're one of these people! you make the rest of us look bad), and all the stores are firmly in the 2 month holiday season, I'm concentrating on my most favorite holiday of all..... Thanksgiving! What could be better than a holiday that is all about food, MY favorite food, and doesn't involve the stress of buying presents? Throw in the fact that there's parades filled with Broadway musical numbers and I'm in HEAVEN.

When Ryan and I got married, the Thanksgiving dance began. Less a dance, more a balancing act. We've struggled for 7 years now to find the right balance of His vs Mine. Its amazing how attached we get to our traditions, and our two families are just so different. His are Early Eaters, Mine are Late Eaters. His have sweet potato pie and oyster-laden stuffing, Mine has spinach casserole and cranberry dressing. His play games (and cheat! don't pretend you don't!) after dinner, and Mine sit around the table letting leftovers get cold while we chat and sip wine. But for all of the differences, there's one thing that's awesome about juggling our time that one day of the year: we get to eat all our favorite foods TWICE.

But this year the unthinkable has happened. Our parents are out of town. No, not mine or his, but OURS. Not a single parent left in town to make us our favorite food?! No homemade stuffing? No pumpkin pie? NOTHING?! People, I cannot tell you how much this breaks my heart.

We're going to make the best of it though. My brother works on Thanksgiving, so we're thinking about having a mini Thanksgiving on that Friday, just the three of us.

At the very least, this new arrangement will probably involve tequila shots.

**UPDATE***
I was just reading a piece of this post to Ryan, the piece where I just can't believe this will be our 7th Thanksgiving together. Then it hit me, this is actually our EIGHTH Thanksgiving together. 8 years ago this month Ryan and I sorta started dating, and over the Thanksgiving weekend I met his parents for the first time We had pizza, and I remember my family giving me such a hard time because I was MEETING THE PARENTS. And I remember thinking, "Why in the world am I meeting the parents of a guy of only been on a few actual dates with?". Heh. Who knew. :-)

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