Thanksgiving Narrative

Here is the account of what we did for Thanksgiving.  Much less because you want to know, rather more of a time-capsule record so that in 20 years when The Professor and I ask each other, "what did we do for Thanksgiving in 2010?" we can come here and find out.

Will life as we know it still exist in 20 years?  Will Blogspot still exist?  Who knows.

This year's Thanksgiving was great.  The Professor and I had talked about going up north to see his uncle\cousins\grandpa.  But as the time drew near, we each individually began to get disillusioned with the idea.  I was going to have to work at 6:45am the next day, so we weren't going to be able to stay very late.  And the thing with that crowd is that everything runs at least an hour behind schedule.  So if they say they will eat at 3pm, it's really 4.  So we started picturing the vast load of BabyGirl gear required for a daytrip, and then realized we'd have to bolt right out of there after wiping the last morsel from the corner of our mouths, and the plan lost its appeal.  We LOVE the people up there.  But the hassle was going to outweigh the quality time, you know?  The Professor and i both have been feeling very run-down for the past, oh, 7 months since the BabyGirl blessed our lives, and we weren't in the mood for a whole lot of fanfare.

Coincidentally, as we had these thoughts but had yet to verbalize them to each other, Sue happened to ask me at church what our Thankgiving plans were.  Then she told me the plan that she and Molly had hatched for a completely no-pressure, non-stress Thanksgiving.  It sounded like a dream come true.  I was immediately on board.  I told her that i would double-check with The Professor.

Of course he loved it.  We started calling it "Thanksgiving in Your Jammies" (and yes we really did wear our jammies).  The plan was for everyone to cook their food several days in advance so that there was not a single thing to be done the day of.  It was like a true Jewish Sabbath; no work was allowed.  And since no one was cooking on Thursday, there were no time limitations.  The food was already ready, so you could just show up whenever.  I made the Bourbon-Cranberry Sauce on Tuesday and Chocolate Delight on Wednesday when i got home from work.

Thursday morning, we woke up promptly at 7am, thanks to the BabyGirl's internal clock.  No sleeping in for us for the next 15ish years!  We all had a nice leisurely morning complete with pancake breakfast.  I put some cranberry sauce on my pancakes and it was delicious.  The Professor and i both took nice long showers, a rare treat.  He skyped with his side of the family and I called mine.  Except i only spoke to my dad.  Then, when the BabyGirl woke up from her nap, we loaded up the Green Warrior and hit the road!

We drove, now pay attention here because the following information is so beautiful, 0.6 miles to our destination.  Oh the delight.  Last year we drove EIGHT HUNDRED MILES.  Allow me to tell you about it.  This year, i got off work at about 3pm on Wednesday.  It was grey, raining, with traffic everywhere.  I drove home on Lakeshore Drive, and opposite me on the south-bound side it was bumper to bumper in the nasty rain.  It caused me to remember that on exactly this day, and exactly this time last year, Mark picked me up from work and we began the drive in the gray rain with traffic, traffic, traffic.  We drove until our favorite Comfort Suites a few exits south of Indianapolis, and it rained the entire way, bumper-to-bumper.  And as i headed home from work, i thanked the dear Lord that i wasn't going through that again.  I love my family dearly and i miss them every day, but some hardships just aren't worth it.

So yes, we drove 0.6 miles.  We unloaded all our stuff: the Bourbon Cranberry Sauce, the Chocolate Delight, the BabyGirl in her 50 pound carseat, the Pack-n-Play, the Bag 'O Games\Movies, the Pinot Noir, the diaper bag, and The Professor's bag of personal Thanksgiving snacks.  You see, The Professor has certain idiosyncracies when it comes to food.  See example below.  This is his idea of a holiday meal. 

Yes, that would be Oreos, Coke, Jack Daniels, Milk Duds, and potato chips.  Despite the fact that we had a full Thanksgiving meal, The Professor wanted his junk food.

We got inside and Anne was there!  She stayed for only a few minutes and then she left.  The BabyGirl was due to eat as soon as we got there, so we fed her while the food was set up.  After that, we ate!  Yummy! There was turkey and gravy by Sue, mashed potato heaven by Molly, green beans by Audrey, my cranberry sauce, am i missing anything?  Also there were carrots\onions by Sue.  We enjoyed the food and also had great conversation.  I like small groups.  Normally at Thanksgiving meals, there are about 15 people at the table, which makes conversation difficult.  The worst is when you are on the border between two different discussions.  The people to your left are talking about one thing and the people on your right are talking about something else.  And you are positioned so that you can't participate in either conversation.

Once we finished eating and clearing away the plates, Sue set up a big fancy projector and we watched the movie "The Family Man" with Nicolas Cage.  The BabyGirl had such a great time.  She had all the room in the world to crawl around.  We made a designated area for her by putting up a wall of pillows.  Mark and i laid on the floor to watch the movie and the BabyGirl played to her heart's content.  We ate dessert during the movie, and the Chocolate Delight was a huge success.

After the movie, we sat around to chat.  Then Sue drove Audrey home because she had to work the next day.  Now we felt hungry, so we got all the food back out and had another round.  We sat in the single's lounge and talked some more, until the BabyGirl woke up crying around 10pm.  I think she woke up and didn't know where she was and got scared.  Man was she crying.  Sue held her while we packed all our stuff up.  I couldn't help but laugh at her because she made the most tragic facial expressions.  She began by curling up her bottom lip and then the sadness slowly spread across her whole face.  When the face was 100% engaged, then the crying ensued.  Oh it was adorable. 

We drove home.  The problem with only driving 0.6 miles is that your car doesn't have time to warm up before you have to get back out in the cold again.  We planned to pull up to the front door to unload everything, and then The Professor would go park the car.  But we saw a parking spot that was pseudo-close and we had to carpe diem.  It would probably be gone by the time we unloaded.  The Professor carried the BabyGirl and sprinted (yes, sprinted) to our building.  Why?  Because it was 17 degrees.  It was such an act of love.  It's very difficult to sprint while carrying a BabyGirl.  He did it because he didn't want her to get cold.  One day when she's older I'll tell her about it.  "Do you know how much your Daddy loves you?"

It looked kind of like he was stealing her.  Some crazy dude running with a baby at 10pm.

And thus concludes the account of Thanksgiving 2010.