I LOVE THANKSGIVING!!!!! I’ve never made any secret of my affinity for Thanksgiving. It is, by far, my favorite holiday. It’s unassuming and quiet, tucked nicely into November. It requires no gifts or religion. Be thankful. Feast. Love each other. It’s perfect! And we get to host all of our crazy, wonderful, big families for the best holiday of the year. I get to have all my kiddos home (albeit, with altered schedules) and we must all work together to pull off an epic feast. Although numbers were down a little for us this year, we still had our traditional brunch for 49, and dinner for 10. Travis made brunch for 75 and dinner for 30, so everyone got leftovers. Travis is truly in his glory on this day. He is the chef. I am the waitress, hostess, and buser. This year, Travis pulled out the chef outfit that my brother-in-law, Goff, had gifted to him sometime before Goff’s death in 2019. After the Covid break from family gatherings, Thanksgiving felt like my heart could beat again. It felt so wonderfully normal, it was amazing! How lucky I am to have all these fantastic people in my life that are willing to make the trek to Indiana, even if it’s just for a few hours.
I felt the forming of new traditions. Both of my daughters have serious boyfriends, so each of them stayed home for brunch, and travelled to their boyfriends’ houses (one in the western Chicago suburbs and one in Indianapolis) to celebrate dinner with their boyfriends’ families. While I am thankful for Nick and Wolfgang, it felt strange without Tessa and Taryn for half the day. Both the girls (and Wolfgang) made it home Friday for the traditional cutting of the Christmas tree, so all was fine!
When we first moved to Indiana, we skipped cutting our own tree for a couple years. I am not sure when it resumed, but I am happy it’s back. Even our geriatric dogs seem to enjoy it, although they zonk out on the couch after the exhausting excursion. The tree selection at our Indiana tree farm was a bit thin this year. There seem to be whole sections that the owners aren’t replanting, which is alarming. We still made the best of it. At one point, Tessa came running up with Blackie joking that Blackie let a treat. I freaked out a bit. One farm doesn’t allow dogs, and I suspect it’s because some people don’t pick up after the dogs, and other people step in it, or worse, lay in it to cut a tree. Part of our group got to go dog poo hunting for a while instead of Christmas tree hunting. After that, anyone with a dog had to also have bags. Not to be outdone, Roscoe promptly pooped, twice.
Here’s the thing nobody talks about (but as usual, I do). What do you do with the poo bags while you are driving back to the building from the farthest reaches of the property (presumably with your tree on the roof)? We actually didn’t find a suitable llama tree (and it must be shaped like a llama… a tradition of questionable origin that just won’t go away), so we were driving back to the closer tree area with no tree, but plenty of poo that nobody wanted in the car. I suggested that somebody hold it outside the window of the car, but who would be that carefully selected somebody? It was pretty cold and nobody was signing up. Someone suggested closing it in the door. Before I could object, the driver’s side door (my door) was closed on me with the dog poo bag hanging out of it. So now we are those people. The people driving back to tree farm headquarters for a bathroom break without a tree, but with a poo bag dangling from the driver’s door, seven people and two dogs in the car, arguing about the next location for our hunt for the perfect tree. It was awesome!
And now that the tree is up, am I the only person that has large storage containers tucked away around the living spaces because I lost motivation to complete the decorating? We will likely have the boxes hanging about for a couple weeks, until the kids are back from college and I can wrangle the troops to complete the decorating. It’s part of our charm. Heck, maybe it’s part of Christmas, Haldeman style.
Have a great week everyone! I am thankful for you!
