Thanksgiving fun

When I was younger, I looked forward to Thanksgiving; not so much for what the holiday represented, but rather, it was 2 days off from school! And all that food was a pretty good incentive, too. When I started living on my own, I hosted a few Thanksgiving dinners--roasted a turkey with stuffing and everything! I also joined a few friends and accepted invitations to attend dinner hosted by other people. Some of these were more memorable than others.

Like the time in college, when a girl I was dating on and off invited me over to her place for a Thanksgiving meal. She was from out of town and said she wasn't driving home for the holiday. I imagined it was going to be just the two of us enjoying a romantic holiday meal. So I got all dressed up and took a bottle of wine and some prophylactics, and showed up at her place ready to celebrate. I was giddy with excitement when I knocked on her door, ready to sweep her off her feet with my sexy smile and come hither pose.

Imagine my surprise when a much older man opened the door. At first I thought maybe I was at the wrong place, but the old man extend out his hand and introduced himself, as my date's father! And when I entered the apartment,the surprise continued as I found more people inside. My date's parents, her brother, her aunts and uncles and cousins had driven into town. What I thought was going to be a romantic dinner for two turned out to be a meet the parents grilling. And boy did those people interrogate me about the nature of my relationship with my date. Luckily, by the end of the night, I had charmed her family well enough for them to lay off the investigation and welcome me into the fold. They even invited me to go on a ski trip with them! Afterwards, I was washing dishes with my date when she asked if I was spending the night.

I said, "Hell no! Not with your parents here!"

She laughed, "My family loves you. They think you're perfect!", she paused, then teased," Ah, are you worried about my reputation?"

And I replied, "Uh, no; I'm worried about mine! Like you said, your family thinks I'm perfect!"

Then there was the time when a friend in Phoenix, Arizona wanted me to drive up and spend the holiday with her; she asked if I could pick up her sister and cousins in Houston and make the 20 hour drive. Well, I picked up her sister and her two cousins and started our long drive. When we got to Phoenix, we were surprised that my friend's in laws were staying over, and they brought four of their friends! The guest room reserved for the sister and cousins was gone. Now, I don't mind sleeping on the living room floor; I've slept in worse places. But I knew this house was packed! I kind of wished my friend had told me that her in laws had decided to come down with their friends. I could've gotten a hotel room before hand.

But for some reason, my friend was under the delusion that we would be fine sleeping in the living room all crammed together! So I told her that I was getting a hotel, and her sister and cousins wanted to get one, too. Of course, being that it was so late, we couldn't find a place closer to my friend's home. But we reserved two rooms about 45 minutes north of the city. Over dinner, my friend discussed plans for the next day: Playing bridge and maybe heading out to the crafts store to buy yarn! I was thinking, um, no, I'm not spending my holiday knittings socks!

On the drive up to the hotel, I could feel the tension from the sister and the cousins. We started talking, and they were not happy with the situation. They didn't want to spend the holiday playing bridge or knitting either! So, I told them, semi-jokingly, that if we kept driving north, we'd eventually find the way to Las Vegas, only 6 hours away. They were quiet, for less than a minute, then they said, hell yeah! So we drove on to Las Vegas, re-energized and excited! We parked at a hotel at midnight and got a room. Then we hit the Strip going from casino to casino, gambling, drinking, dancing and stopping only when the sun came up. Then we ate a buffet breakfast, showered, slept for a few hours, then hopped in the car and drove back.

During the drive back, my friend called to see if we were joining them for their shopping trip, but her sister told her we were still tired from the long drive from Houston and we're sleeping in. As soon as she hung up, we all started laughing in the car. Back in town, we found another hotel much closer to my friend's place, booked it for the night, then checked out the sights. We met my friend later for that afternoon, had dinner, hung out for a bit before returning to the hotel. The next day, we drove back home. I never told my friend what really happened, and I doubt I ever will. What could've been a terrible Thanksgiving turned out to be a blast!

Then there was the time I accepted an invitation to three Thanksgiving meals, or as I like to call it, the miracle of the rice krispies treats. Lucky for me, the meals were held at different times. I had made lots of rice krispies treats with intent of taking them to each of the meals I was attending. The first meal was held at noon, given by friends who said not to bring anything, but if we wanted to, we could bring a dessert. Well, everyone brought a dessert. People brought a lot of pies, especially pumpkin and apple. As I was leaving, I was given a whole apple pie to take home.

I took the apple pie, and instead of returning home, I drove straight to the next meal, knowing I'd be about an hour early. The second meal was scheduled for four in the afternoon. That was fine, because it gave me time to spend with my friends who decided to fry a turkey that year. Just in case the fried turkey turned out to be a mistake, they had also roasted 6 cornish hens. Well, the fried turkey was a big hit! It tasted delicious! But now, my friends were stuck with the cornish hens and they didn't have room in the fridge. So, they gave me 2 cornish hens to take home.

I left the second meal at about 6 in the evening and ventured to the final Thanksgiving meal of the day instead of driving home to drop off the cornish hens. And it was a good thing that I decided to take the cornish hens to this dinner, which my hosts happily accepted. These friends had made a turkey and a large ham for the meal. My friends had a surprising number of people show up uninvited; that they didn't really mind. The problem was, some of the people that their guests had brought unannounced didn't eat ham! Luckily, the cornish hens would take care of them if they didn't want the turkey either. All in all, it was good dinner, and it was by far the biggest in terms of people present, which made for some good games and fun. When I left the party later on, my friends gave me a bottle of wine to take home with me. And when I finally got home, I kicked off my shoes opened that bottle of wine and drank it on the sofa, thinking, wow, how great is this? I started off with rice kripies treats and ended up with a bottle of wine.

Ever since I started living on my own, I usually end up working on Thanksgiving. I don't mind, really. I know a lot of people who want to be home with their families. I don't mind switching work schedules with someone who wants to be off for Thanksgiving. I do the same for Christmas. New Year's Eve, however, is my sacred holiday and I always make sure I'm off that day! And I find that people who want me to work Thanksgiving or Xmas for them have no problems working for me on New Year's Eve. And so it was today, I was one of the few at work. On holidays, it's common for us to bring dishes to share. So today, I took a peach cobbler and some rice krispies treats to work to share with my co workers. It was a good day. Hope yours was good, too.