Thanksgiving (A story about my thanksgiving day this year)

As we were in the middle of four lanes of traffic, my parents were conversing about what lane was best to go in, my mom said to my dad that he needed to get "gutsy", as she put it, when driving. Although this same word to my dad means "smashed", as he said. As usual I assumed we would be late to my aunt's house because at that point in the trip we had about another hour to drive, and the holiday traffic was horrendous. Knowing I had all this extra time, my shoes came off and my feet were in the comfort of my fuzzy socks. Oh, those fuzzy socks, you know the ones; the ones you never for the life of you want to take off, because they are so warm you think the moment you take your feet out of them you're bound to get frost bitten feet, yeah those ones. As I was enjoying the warmth and comfort of these socks, we pulled into a rest stop. And can I tell you how much I hate rest stops, unless completely necessary. They are almost always busy and it takes forever to leave because of the traffic. My dad wanted to get more coffee, even though we had already stopped before we actually "hit the road", he felt like he needed more. Finally dad comes out of the convienience store, and we are on the road again!

Whoever invented fuzzy socks is a genius. And it was very strange that I wasn't wearing shoes in the car. When I was little and my family would travel long distances in the car I always asked my dad if I could take my shoes off. I thought that was cool of course, having no shoes on in the car. But being the over protective parent type, my dad would always reply with something along the lines of "If we ever get in a car accident, I want you to have shoes on in case we have to walk any where and there is broken glass on the road." yes, that's exactly what he would say. So now having no shoes on actually did make me feel cool.

We were almost there, so my mom decided to call her sister and tell her where we were. When my mom talks to her sisters, it's almost like they were kids again. They talk for hours on end and they laugh really really hard, harder than you have ever heard them laugh normally. So my mom called and instead of the usual hello, or hey, she always says "Hey Lo!", my aunts name being Lorraine. At this point, when I heard "Hey Lo!", I couldn't wait until we got there. And the surprising news from Aunt Lorraine was that we were actually ahead of my other aunt and uncle on their way! Early for once! Well beside the fact that we were actually suposed to be there a half an hour ago.

We finally arrived at my aunt's house and could smell the feast waiting for us as we walked up the stairs to the dining room. The room was filled with bone-crushing hugs and chatter, don't forget the chatter! Then all of a sudden I heard someone whispering. I thought I was going mad until I saw a man struggling to make conversation to my cousin in the kitchen. This man was my aunt's friend who has had laryngitis for three weeks. This poor man; besides having laryngitis for three weeks, he also had a Boston accent, which made it doubly hard to understand him. The whole time he was there it felt like he was whispering to us, but the fact of his accent made it hard not to laugh. The rest of my family had never met him, and it was completely awkward, one because of his voice imparment, but two because we had no idea who this guy was. He even made stuffed mushrooms, which I kindly refused, well because the man had laryngitis for three weeks, and I had no plan in catching it. Overall I felt bad for him, until he went outside for a cigarette, and then I didn't feel so sorry.

Thanksgiving this year was great. I was surrounded by my family and that is all that matters in the end. Good food, family, a warm house, it doesn't really get any better than that.

That is all

-"M"