Thanksgiving Snapshot

Oddly enough, my last post was on Veteran's Day, when I was also counting my many blessings. Well, all of a sudden, it's Thanksgiving, (Or yesterday was...) and here it is another day to give thanks.

While I have spent the the last few Thanksgivings with my grandparents and some aunts, uncles and cousins in Chicago, this year was my first Thanksgiving with my immediate family since my senior year of high school. It was quite nice to be home. Today's weather was also pleasant in a lovely, autumnal sort of way. We have recently had some unseasonably warm weather, even for Dallas, and it was disconcerting to think of celebrating Thanksgiving when it was in the 80s. But all was well when we woke up this morning to a chilly, blustery day with temperatures in the 40s. Just the sort of day I'd been craving. (After all, I had a new sweater I'd been dying to wear!)

The day was pleasantly spent talking and joking with my family, reminiscing, watching myriad football and basketball games, listening to music, cooking, eating, drinking... Not so unusual as far as Thanksgivings go. Even washing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen was an enjoyable endeavor. Soon after the dishes were done, we had pumpkin pie and coffee and people began to fade very quickly. Most of the family went to bed, and my brother and I curled up on the pull-out couch where I'm sleeping for the next week or so, while my grandparents sleep in my sister's and my room. He sat and read a giant book of Peanuts comics and I sat with my computer on my lap. The fire that my brothers had maintained all day was smoldering into a pile of glowing ashes and the room was warm. I asked if he wanted to listen to some Christmas music and he looked at me sharply and grinned. So I found a medley of Christmas songs by our favorite men's chorus, and we sat and listened.

Tomorrow I have to go back to work, but friends are still in town for the holiday weekend and my grandparents are in town for a little over a week, so the merry-making can continue at least a little longer...

P.S. If you're not quite as ready for Christmas music as I am (and have been), here's a lovely Thanksgiving song by Josh Groban. "Thankful"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2M0GQOgYGg