Thanks-for-giving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I am really excited about it. Thanksgiving is my favorite, favorite, favorite holiday. I have always loved every aspect of it - all my favorite foods and all my favorite people, hours and hours of eating and visiting and then even more eating when it's dessert time!

My family has always done Thanksgiving up big, too. We have an early dinner and we invite a lot of people, not just family but family friends as well. The crowd varies every year, but last year in particular was very large and I think there were more than 30 people there, and even more people trickle by in the evening after their own celebrations to join us for dessert.

The food is amazing. My father smokes a turkey and stuffs it with citrus fruits and herbs, so it has this amazing flavor. The gravy is amazing too, and I don't usually like gravy. Then we have all the usual accompaniments, mashed potatoes, stuffing/dressing, green beans, broccoli casserole, corn souffle. Dessert is my favorite, and there's even a pie named after me. The people are all great too. Everyone in my family is quite a character, and we have a lot of fun together. Weird, but fun. Maybe it's so much fun BECAUSE of how weird everyone is.

Thanksgiving is actually a special time between me and M, too. When we had known each other for four months, Thanksgiving rolled around and I asked him to accompany me to my family's Thanksgiving dinner. He agreed, and he drove an hour and a half to come get me on the only transportation he had - his motorcycle. That was the first time he'd met any of my family besides my parents. We showed up on his motorcycle, and I can still remember by grandmother freaking out about me riding on the back of some guy's motorcycle. She yelled at me and even included my middle & last name in her rant. Then, the very next words out of her mouth were "He's cute!" Of course everyone loved him, he's such a fantastic guy.

The next Thanksgiving, M accompanied me too and that was where we announced our engagement and upcoming wedding to most of my family and friends. It was fun because everyone wanted to see the engagement ring.

Since then, we've never missed a Thanksgiving, and we never plan to. It's such a great time of family togetherness, and I hope my son grows up thinking fondly of his annual trek to the grandparents and great grandparents, his Poppa's fantastic turkey and his Graham's magical pies. The endless off-the-wall conversations and his great uncles' back massages and inappropriate jokes. Because if there's one thing my family will never cease to be, it's weird.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who celebrate! Tomorrow I'll tell you about another annual tradition we have that's not-so-much-fun - the Friday prayers we attend at the mosque near where my parents live where the sermon is always about how BAD Thanksgiving is. Sheesh.