thanksgiving in general

I walked into CVS the other day and it looked like Christmas puked all over the place. Seriously? Is it that time of year already? Every commercial on tv has jingle bells in the background. As someone who has always been a huge fan of the holidays (typically, I go full throttle on November 1st with my Christmas music), I'm just not feeling it this year. I don't know why.

I definitely prefer Thanksgiving over Christmas. Less stress, no presents, and you still have a bit of a holiday season to look forward to.

For awhile, my family went away every year around Thanksgiving, so our dinners were either non-traditional, or we'd do some American style buffet. I'm pretty sure we did the Sizzler or something one year. But I loved it! Those unusual Thanksgivings are the ones I remember the best. I can't remember when we started being home for Thanksgiving. Probably when I was out of high school? My parents are usually away the few weeks before Thanksgiving, so we've gone to other family members' houses for dinner. I don't know, most of my Thanksgiving memories in college are forgettable. Except one!

The year I was in Prague (2006), I was bummed about not being around my family for my favorite holiday. So we decided to get our study abroad group together and have a Thanksgiving extravaganza. We all made dishes that we were going to miss from home, and even went so far as to get a turkey and pumpkin pie. A few of my classmates never had pumpkin pie - the girls from the Netherlands and one girl from the UK. Before we ate, I asked if we could all share what we were thankful for. It was a wonderful experience I'll never forget. They weren't my family, but we had a great holiday.

Two extra points for Thanksgiving '06 since I left on a plane for Spain the following morning. Everyone else went to Auschwitz...I went to glorious Madrid and ate tapas and went dancing and wandered fabulous art museums while listening to my iPod on shuffle. Alone. Best. Thing. EVER.

Anyway... last Thanksgiving was pretty much awful. To make a long story short, politics got involved and it was nasty. I spent the hour ride home bawling about how disrespectful some people are to others views and why does my favorite holiday have to get shit on and my God I'm just going to eat Thanksgiving dinner by myself next year.

Here's to a better one this year. I have a lot to be thankful for (which I shall cover in a later post) and I expect this years spread will be nothing short of delightful.

And if people are going to fight, I am having a back up plan for the closest place that is serving a Thanksgiving feast with all the fixins. AKA I will have a Boston Market platter waiting for me at home just in case.