Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving break was our second five day weekend in a row and it was luxuriously relaxing. Our valley was shrouded in thick cold fog for several long days and it was cozy to stay home together.

I. Preamble to Thanksgiving Break: Before the break started, there were two days of school to survive. Amber and I hung out together and she nearly drove me crazy with her pestering attentions, but we survived and then Thanksgiving break began at last.

Cold foggy morning, boarding the school bus. I LOVE having Jay and Rose ride the bus both to and from school this year. It is such a daily routine burden lifted for me. They are much more willing to get out the door on time when a school bus is waiting at the door than if it’s me waiting at the door.

Amby-time. This girl is so intense, she makes me want to scream sometimes. But every now and then when I notice how fast time is slipping away, I am struck with a pang of loneliness. Amber will start school in less than two years. I tend to take lots of sentimental selfies whenever those thoughts cross my mind.

• A highlight of one day was two kitties wandering through our yard and pausing to play in our driveway.
• I was reading and Amber decided I looked either too comfy, or just comfy enough.
• We love it when Rosie comes home! The girls built a big Barbie castle one afternoon. Then Jay came in and bashed it down, instigating loud angry screaming by his sisters. We made him rebuild it.
• Jay and Amber, playing some sort of army battle game in the play room before school.
• Sunday lunch: a massive crepe-rito.
• It was crystal clear on the Sunday night before Thanksgiving, and we snuck outside to watch the sunset together. It was the best ten minutes of my day.

II. Thanksgiving Break Begins. Jeff came home from work feeling sick on Monday afternoon, and he battled a stomach bug all week. Thanksgiving dinner was only his second square meal all week! Poor man. The rest of us felt the effects of different mild germs all weekend as well, but we all soldiered onwards because it’s the most wonderful time of the year and we weren’t sick enough to completely give up on all of our fun family traditions!

• Rose and Amber made several beaded necklaces and bracelets. I was surprised that Amber was interested in sitting still and carefully stringing each bead onto the yarn, but she made herself a nice big necklace! These sisters are pretty cute playmates.
• Heaven help us, Jay used some of his own money to buy a Dungeons and Dragons game. The package arrived just in time for Thanksgiving break. Jay has created characters for each of his family members and we have played two rounds together so far. It makes zero sense to me and Jay is still figuring it out too, so these 30-45 minute family D&D sessions are a truly noble parental sacrifice.
• A sneaky Dungeons and Dragons selfie. Family time is family time, right? I think I may have finally found a non-electronic game that I dislike more than video games… Give me NintendoLand over Dungeons and Dragons any day! Or neither. How about charades? Or guess the animal? Uno? Scrabble?
• One afternoon during Thanksgiving break, Rose did my hair while Amber happily snipped several sheets of paper into tiny bits. When Amber was done with the paper, I saw a golden curl fall to the floor and immediately confiscated the scissors before she could do more damage to her hair.
• On “Thanksgiving Eve” we watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special where Snoopy makes them toast, popcorn, jelly beans, and pretzels for Thanksgiving dinner. Rose and Amber were excited when I let them have that same dinner too. (Jay wasn’t feeling well so he did not join in.) We used Skittles instead of jelly beans.

III. Thankful Sundae: I have always wanted to do a thankful tree or some sort of thankful activity during November, but I have never managed it. I love the idea of putting leaves labeled with things we’re thankful for on a tree, but our small family room already had a massive autumn leaf garland. We didn’t need more leaves in our house. Then I had a brain wave: how about a thankful ice cream sundae? Now we’re talking! I cut a stack of ice cream scoop shapes out of paper and we wrote one thing we were thankful for on each scoop. It was supposed to be one thankful thing per person per day in November, but we started a week late and did them in bunches every couple of days rather than one per day, then stopped a few days before Thanksgiving once it reached the top of the door. It still worked. Rose made the most scoops. For fun, I pasted each of our faces onto paper spoons, diving into the thankful sundae. We stuck it all to the inside of our front door.

IV. Family Fog Photos: On Wednesday morning, the trees were decorated with beautiful frozen fog and I couldn’t resist trying for a frosty family picture. It’s almost Christmas card time after all. None of us were really in the mood, but we set up the tripod anyways. The first set of pictures we took came out all out of focus and grainy. I wilted. Our family only ever has one or two good group pictures in them on any given day, and we just wasted them on grainy pictures! After an hour long break, I lured my family back out into the cold with promises of hot chocolate for lunch. We got some clear pictures…

• I scouted photo locations and practiced using my phone as a Bluetooth remote control for the camera.
• Jeff patiently smiled for my photo trial.
• There’s always at least one of us goofing off. I don’t mind goofy as much as I mind composition, and the kids were much closer to the camera than us parents in these, making their heads look bigger than ours. The annoying thing is I might not have ever noticed that if my pro-photographer sister hadn’t shown it to me. Thanks a lot, Em, as if it wasn’t already hard enough to get a family photo I like! Haha.
• Rose and her unusual poses…but I still like this one.
•  “Kiss someone!”
• This was my favorite. Typical. We’re best at being silly.
• Reaping the rewards of their photographic efforts.

V. Thanksgiving Day: Thanksgiving day dawned somewhere far above the thick freezing fog. Jeff and I were feeling kind of under the weather. He had come home from school sick on Monday and had been battling a subtle stomach bug all week. I was on day six of a pounding sinus headache. Jay and Rose were feeling off as well. We actually cancelled our dinner plans with Jeff’s parents because we didn’t feel up to a big shebang and we didn’t want to get them sick. Jeff had announced our traditional Thanksgiving morning family turkey trot at church the previous two Sundays, but we didn’t think anyone would come. At 8am as we were walking out of our house to do the run, we were surprised to see two families from our ward coming to join us! It was a muddy cold wet five kilometers through the vineyards behind our house, but Jeff made hot chocolate for our seven guests afterwards and it was all very pleasant and sociable. I took zero pictures because apparently I chicken out with pictures when I’m around other people.

After the turkey trot, Jeff and I forced ourselves to make some Thanksgiving-ish food, in spite of our fatigue and various illnesses. He worked on the turkey and taters while I whipped up some rolls, pie, green beans, and gravy. Jeff’s sweet parents stopped by and gave us two side dishes (yams and stuffing) to supplement our feeble feast, and it turned out to be quite large. We sat down to eat at 12:30pm. All of us were feeling off and we didn’t really make much of a dent in the food. We cleaned up to happy Christmas music, and then crashed on the couch to watch Home Alone–the first Christmas movie of the season, chosen unanimously by Jay and Rose.

Happy Thanksgiving!