Thanksgiving

Since it is the holiday season and my relatives flood in from Rhode Island, Arizona, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania I figured I should write about it.

Thanksgiving in particular.

As I was talking to some people about why I love Thanksgiving and what we do on Turkey Day, it shocked me that not everyone was like us.

This is a typical Thanksgiving week:

Sunday/Monday:

1.     Prepare what is able to prepared ahead of time such as glazed pecans, cookies, buy more food.

2.     Obsessively clean the bathroom, basement, guestroom, kitchen and bedrooms, because you will not be sleeping in them for the next few days.

3.     Buy booze.

4.     Pray for no extreme weather conditions.

Tuesday:

1.     Try not to make a mess in the kitchen, bathroom, or family room.

2.     Clean some more.

3.     Get more food.

4.     Watch all my t.v shows, and get out singing, guitar playing, screaming, whining before Grandma arrives by airplane at night.

5.     Pick Grandma up at the Wilkes-Barre Scranton/Avoca Airport.

Wednesday:

1.     Decide if I’m going to school.

2.     Decide against it.

3.     Wake up at around 7:00am to find mom in the kitchen trying to figure where she’s going to put everything between our two refrigerators.

4.     Eat bagels, or breakfast casserole.

5.     Listen to Gram decide what she wants to do. Gram spends a long time upstairs, because she can’t go up and down stairs.

6.     Gram comes down makeup and dressed, ready to work and help prepare.

7.     I come downstairs to realize what’s going on.

8.     Go out to eat at night, even if there’s food in the freezer.

9.     Buy more food even though the refridge is more than full.

10. More relatives come.

Thursday:

1.     Wake up to find mom in the kitchen at 7 am trying to figure out what temperature the oven needs to be on to cook the turkey.

2.     Find out if Gram is still sleeping. Try to keep quiet not to wake anyone up.

3.     Dad hangs around hiding in his office and periodically coming out to help. Sometimes he hangs around and does everything mom tells him to do.

4.     Wipe down counters. Again.

5.     Mom puts sticky notes where she wants certain dishes and in what containers.

6.     Go upstairs take a shower before everyone awakens, or decides to shower.

7.     Find a safe spot to put on makeup.

8.     Find an outfit , while Gram’s in and out of my room.

9.     Help mom make dips, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.

10. Try to snack on munchies like chips, dip, cheese and crackers and mom yells at me because it’s for our guests.

11. I whine and Gram tells me to stop, and I ignore her.

12. Get wine glasses out, and listen to Gram talk about how when she was a kid, there was more respect for her parents. Roll my eyes.  

13. Get wine glasses out.

14. First guests arrive at noonish.

15. Give everyone hugs.

16. Munch on the munchies for 2-4 hours.

17. Try to play with the little kids, but eat at the same time.

18. Decide to put almost all the munchies away and get hungry again.

19. Put turkey in the oven.

20. Everyone still talks while mom and dad put everything else out.

21. Stuff our faces, because no one’s cooking when they go home.

22. Get the little kids to eat.

23. Gramma tells the story of how her and her siblings used to have to perform at family gatherings. She harasses us to play our instruments for everyone else. I ignore it, I’m more focused on food.

24. Let us all say how stuffed we are.

25. Bring out dessert.

26. Stuff our faces with desserts.

27. Harass my sister and I to perform a song. We deny.

28. Let everyone say they’re leaving.

29. Harass us again to play a song.

30. An hour later, have everyone actually leave.

31. Find a place to dump the leftovers.

32. Clean dishes by hand and by dishwasher with 5 or more people helping.

33. Get tired, try to hide. Later in the evening, it works.

34. Finally, we go to bed.

This is a typical Thanksgiving holiday in my family, hope yours is family filled, and safe. Have a great Thanksgiving.