Pre and Post Thanksgiving Update

So looking at my posts, I realized I haven't blogged since Veteran's Day. November was a crazy month. I was in Cincinnati (Sidebar - Ohio sucks) for a conference the week before Thanksgiving, and so the days leading up to that were crazy trying to get a bunch of stuff done and lined up so that when I got back I would be able to close the building down the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

So the conference came and went, and then I had to close down the building, and then by the time all that was done all I wanted to do was take a nap. But, I went to visit the Captain in Fort Wayne instead. We played a lot of Call of Duty: World at War which is, by the way, awesome. Then I came back to my apartment to "work" for two days before heading back to Michigan.

Going back to Michigan, I was telling people that I couldn't remember the last time my brothers and I were all in the same place at the same time. I think it might have been Memorial Day, but I wasn't sure. I got home Tuesday night, and only one of my brothers came home on Wednesday. My other brother stayed at school and we were going to pick him up on the way to our Grandparents' for Thanksgiving, except that he had food poisoning from the night before and couldn't get off the couch in his apartment. So, my other brother and I volunteered to stay with him for a few hours until he was sure he could make it to our grandparents' house.

And really, that's the family time that I cared about with going home for Thanksgiving. I have no problem with my extended family, but all the major holidays where we see them involve us driving two hours to see them and never vice versa, and a lot of cooking related drama. It's not that I don't want to see them, I just wish the circumstances were different.

It may be un-American, but Thanksgiving doesn't really do much for me. I don't get all excited about the food. None of the standard Thanksgiving fair is food that I typically eat at any other time of year. And like I said, while I don't have any problems with my extended family it's just always more drama than it's worth to see them on Thanksgiving. Our annual trip to Chicago is much more fun, and far less dramatic. I know Thanksgiving is a holiday during which we are to give thanks (duh) for family and the blessings we have received over the year, but that all seems to get lost in arguments over how long to cook the turkey and who is supposed to bring which pie.

Really what I enjoyed was the times that I was with my parents and my brothers. I remember as a kid only seeing certain aunts and uncles every few years, and I remember wondering if that was going to happen with my brothers and I. Now that we're all "grown up" we always seem to be busy at different times, and even though we're all no more than 3 hours from home in different directions, it still seems to be a rare occasion that we're all home. I'll see one of my brothers, or they'll see each other, but the three of us all at once doesn't happen that often anymore.

What's funny is that my immediate family seems to have a Griswold-like (National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation) feeling to it around the holidays. We steel ourselves against the onslaught of crazy relatives and have our own antics when we're at home, and now that we're all grown up we're able to interact on a more even level and it's a lot more fun than it was when we were kids.
Now that it's December I put up my little Christmas tree in my apartment and added the Christmas playlist to my iPod. We've finally got snow with about two inches of accumulation and counting, so the season is off to a good start.