The One About Thanksgiving

Last week a lot of people asked us where we were going for Thanksgiving, and we, depending on our mood, said, "Nowhere," "Orem," "our parents," or "the dungeon!" (Okay, no one really said the dungeon, but Matthew likes to joke that I go there every time this semester because I'm usually shut away in a room working on a huge paper.) I read an article in the Daily Universe last week about the difficulty of choosing which family to celebrate holidays with as a married couple (yes folks, that is news), and one guy said something like, "Oh, it's no big deal. We discussed it and we alternate spending Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with hers. This year we're doing the opposite." Which is all fine and good until I read the next line, which said his and his wife's parents lived TEN MINUTES apart from each other. I don't know if I'm blowing this whole thing out of proportion, but spending the entirety of Christmas TEN MINUTES away from your or your spouse's family seems a little ridiculous to me. I mean, if Christmas were only five minutes long, then maybe. But there are 24 hours to kill, and you can only sleep for so long! (Unless you're a lion, which thanks to a trivia game I just learned can sleep for, like, 80 hours a day.) (Yes, I'm exaggerating.)

Anyway, the point is that Matthew's parents and my parents literally live two minutes from each other. And as such we've never even considered where we're going to spend the holidays. It's only ever been a matter of what time of day we change houses.

At first, I wasn't sure how well this would work for us. Would both families feel gypped by our leaving them for parts of the day? Would we get enough privacy to spend enough of the holiday with just each other? Would our stomachs be able to hold all of the food that would be served? These were some deep, troubling questions. Fortunately, so far I am happy to report that none of them has been a problem. Our families are both understanding of our need for privacy and our desire to spend some time at the other family's house. Since we live in Provo, we still spend every morning and evening just with each other, which is a tradition I'd love to keep up, but of course, if we move out of state and then come back for the holidays, we'll probably end up staying at someone's parents' house. Probably mine. All of my sisters-in-law who live out of town end up staying at their parents' house over the holidays, which I believe is a sign that all these women have married good husbands who don't mind sleeping wherever their wife is most comfortable.

So now we get to the good part. Thanksgiving.

In spite of spending most of the holiday working on my paper in the dungeon, I did manage to get a family portrait shot with me and Matthew. The paper is over 20 pages right now and is on comic theories of the carnivalesque, incongruity, and absurdism in No Country for Old Men. It will probably take one more week to finish. Yeah, I'll be okay. Thanks for asking.

For some reason, Sarah and Hannah always get the tastiest part of the turkey. But I got to eat the leftover cranberry salad the next day, so who's the real winner?

Another awkward eating shot. Guess which one is staged? (Answer: They both were. But isn't Matthew a good actor!?!?)

Mama carved the turkey, but Dad scooped the cranberry salad. Which Mama made. Yeah, our Thanksgiving would be pathetic without Mama. We also didn't stuff our basket turkey this year with things we were thankful for, but did go around the table once at both homes.

My only niece is turning 8 next month! She seems so much younger than I was at that age. But she's cute and funny and wild and crazy. Especially at the sword fighting Wii game.

My nephew Brian seems to have done a lot of growing this year. Last year he would barely interact with me, but now he likes to talk and smile and do whatever people ask him to do (but just try getting him to STOP doing something...). He's also got this cute quirk of saying the prayer before we eat no matter whom Grandpa Stan just asked to say it.

My sisters - aka THE TWINS (which I'm writing just to annoy Sarah, who asked me why I always called them "the twins" in my journal. LOL! At least I didn't call them "the babies," like Mary Alma did...) turn 19 in a few weeks. Isn't that crazy? Time to start filling out those mission papers. Just kidding. Or not? We'll see. To be continued.

The pumpkin pie and whipped cream was, as usual, delicious. Matthew and I actually surprised ourselves at how little we ate all day, but then we made up for it by stuffing ourselves on Black Friday when our hunger caught up with us.

Other highlights?

1. Taking home leftovers from Matt's parents to eat on Saturday. Three days of Thanksgiving and counting!

2. Playing volleyball on Friday with some other Intermediate class people left in town. They were mostly all better than me and I got hit with the ball a lot, but I also made some good plays and serves and wasn't the worst one there, so I'm counting it as a highlight. Plus, it felt great to exercise.

3. Watching "Unbreakable" and "Mao's Last Dancer." Fantastic movies. Really enjoyed them both.

4. Did I mention I wrote over 20 pages of my paper? That's going to save me a lot of grief next week.

5. Decorating for Christmas. Shopping for some Christmas presents online. Realizing that a month from today will be Christmas. Getting super excited about Christmas.

And then, of course, reality hits - I have four more lectures to prepare, another round of papers, assignments, and final exams to grade, a HUGE reading exam in two weeks to study for and take and pass, two papers to finish up (the 20+ pager is the big one; the other one is going to be about 8 pages and I haven't even started it yet), lots of TA miscellaneous stuff, and all kinds of reading to finish up.

I'm so stressed my hair is turning blonde!

Happy Thanksgiving! Be thankful you're not me!

Thanks a lot

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say I have been looking forward to Thanksgiving break since the beginning of the semester. As soon as I found out that I was teaching Tuesdays and Thursdays, and that all the people who taught on Monday got Labor Day off, I couldn't wait to get my revenge on Thanksgiving week, the glorious week when there are no Tuesday/Thursday classes at all. Teaching a class for the first time has been extremely time-consuming and exhausting, particularly near the end of the semester when I have SO MANY OTHER THINGS I need to do. It takes me several hours to prepare my PowerPoints, clips, and notes, and then I still have to grade their work and show up to class and all that. If I was taking one more class (like most of my friends are), I would be an absolute mess.

So this week, I will be taking a long relaxing break from school, studying, reading, grading, writing, and thinking of any kind.... Ha ha, who am I kidding? I will be writing a paper, probably around 15-20 pages, on the function and power of humor in Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. I've been planning to write about this subject all semester, but planning and doing are unfortunately not the same thing. The way I write papers is a little bit like getting into a war. The waiting and planning and strategical moves are the most agonizing parts and take the longest; when I actually start the hand-to-keyboard combat, I turn into a frenzied maniac, losing track of all time and obligations like eating, sleeping, taking showers, doing housework, etc., just so I can LIVE TO WRITE ANOTHER PARAGRAPH. If I get enough momentum, I can go all day and all night. Time never goes by quicker than when I'm working on a paper and have nothing else to do that day.

There are a few other things that I will be doing over Thanksgiving break, of course. Like reading American Psycho and Child of God, bemoaning the pitiful amount of Christmas presents I have managed to collect over this year for my family, and planning our three Christmas pieces with the ward choir.

Now, to cap it off, here are some things I am thankful for:

1. I'm thankful the paper cut on my left pointer finger has FINALLY healed to the point where I can type without having to wear a band-aid or be in excruciating pain. I'm pretty sure I know now which is the most important finger on both of my hands.

2. I'm thankful for the round of awesome movies I checked out last week at the library. Especially motivational and entertaining was the one about the first modern Olympic games in 1896. I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed it.

3. I'm thankful for baked potatoes with chili, cheese, sour cream, and cabbage. This is seriously the easiest meal ever to prepare and I could probably eat it every night.

4. I'm thankful for the privacy of our apartment. I really do prefer having a small place to myself (and Matthew, of course) than a large place with other people. It's sort of ridiculous how drunk I get with the power and independence of it all. Who turned the couch around? I DID. Whose books are those in piles on the floor? MINE. That kind of thing.

5. I'm thankful for the good TV shows that give me something to look forward to on Mondays (I suppose now is as good a time as any to admit my undying love for Revenge and Once Upon a Time).

6. I'm thankful I got to ride a horse this semester. If only that could happen more often.

7. I'm also thankful for Matthew. I will never get over how sweet and cute and good a person he is and how lucky/blessed I am to be his wife.

More in love than Twilight...