Turkey Day Traditions
Or "How I Spent My Thanksgiving Vacation"
By Jim Tyyska (a.k.a. LawnElf)
Thanksgiving. Probably one of the most misunderstood holidays (besides Arbor Day that is). What is Thanksgiving? You don't get presents to open, like at Christmas. No candy like Halloween. No basket of goodies like Easter. Just a big bird and a bunch of corn that's the wrong color more often than not.
Well, I can't speak for the whole world, but Thanksgiving to me is all about the three Fs; family, food, and of course, football.
There is nothing in the world quite like getting up at 7 a.m. and fighting to get 4 kids dressed somewhat decently to go to a semi-formal dinner, which in our family, starts at around 3 p.m. First, there's the "Oh, please let us sleep a little longer" objection, which does not work -- I take great joy in waking my kids up early, after all, they've done the same to me their whole lives. Next, it's the fight over who gets in the bathroom first. Then we go on to dressing and hair brushing. By this time, I'm already starting to lose patience, but does it end there? Nope. Now I have the unenviable task of making sure the kids stay clean while we're waiting for the others to finish dressing. As anyone with kids can tell you, this is not easily accomplished.
One p.m. and everyone is finally ready to go. Now we all pile into the van among screams of "I was sitting there" and "I called it first!" and "He's messing with me!") and head over to mom's.
By the time we pull into the driveway, I have said "Knock it off" 4 times, "That's enough" 3 times, and "That's it! I'm canceling Christmas" at LEAST once (this in a 2 mile drive), and the kids are either happy to be at grandma's or happy to put some distance between them and me -- I can never quite tell for sure which, but I suspect the latter. Once in the house, the first words by the kids are, "I'm hungry! When do we eat?", usually spoken while opening grandma's "goodie" cupboard. After about 5 minutes of whining, they go and put in a video, preferably something they've seen ten thousand times before so they don't have to think about it. While my wife goes into the kitchen to help in the food preparation, I sneak off downstairs to the other TV and turn on the football game. Now THIS is what Thanksgiving's all about… sitting and drinking a beer and watching football.
By the time the first game is over, it's time to eat. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, the whole works. Everyone sits down, one of the kids says grace, and we dig in. Since we starved the kids all morning, they're usually pretty quiet during dinner -- hard to talk with food in your mouth, though not impossible as any parent can tell you.
After dinner, the kids all want dessert right away. I prefer to let my dinner settle first, so I sneak back downstairs to watch football and have another beer, after which, I promptly fall asleep.
Around 8 p.m., my wife will send one of the kids down to wake me. I go upstairs, visit a while longer, then pack everyone up and head home (among screams of "I wanna stay!" and "I'm still hungry" and "Do we have to go to bed when we get home?").
So, what is Thanksgiving to me? Well, besides being a big pain in the posterior, it's a chance to sit down to a large meal with my family and give thanks for all the things we have. Oh, and also a chance to watch football, have a beer or two, and take a nap… a vacation worthy of a king.
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