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!