Well, we made it through…

Well, we made it through Thanksgiving with only occasional tears, so that should count as a triumph, I think. Poor Kavi got pretty tired -- starting around 7:15, she completely lost it every fifteen minutes or so, and yet refused to admit that she was tired and might need to go to bed; she was just too excited to play with her friends. Simone took her family home around 8:30, I think, which is a pretty early Thanksgiving, but with small kids, was perhaps for the best. I'll see her again soon, in any case -- she and Lori are coming by Sunday for a writing date and to celebrate her birthday; I promised Sri Lankan food, and Lori's bringing samosas, so it's not going to be quite all-leftovers all-the-time here. Although close. I had cornbread stuffing for breakfast. Mmm.

The other tears were mine; I got pretty sad after everyone had left. I think I'd been fighting it all day -- it just feels weird, not having more family around for the holiday. Kev's family is small, and often it was just 4-6 people for Thanksgiving. But I grew up with my mom and her eight siblings, and their kids, and it just seems normal to have at least 20 people (half kids) in the house for the holiday. We ended up with five adults and four kids, and that just felt weirdly tiny and strange. (I know, for some of you, that would be a lot of people! :-)

This Christmas, we're hosting my family here, so there'll be six adults, in addition to the four of us, which may feel similarly small and odd. We could just keep going to Kev's family's or mine for the holidays, but we're both rather desperately sick of flying with the kids (last year's post-Christmas flight was a nightmare, with both kids wailing on the plane for hours), and airfares for four are expensive (no one is small enough to fly free anymore); it just seemed like it was time to start hosting our holidays at our own home, start our own family traditions. I think it'll be good, eventually. But this year, the first one, is perhaps bound to feel a little strange.

I was happy that the dishes all came together on time (in part because I blithely abandoned the salad half an hour before dinner). The meal really was lovely -- the food was pretty amazing all around (Simone's family brought mashed potatoes and green bean casserole and bread pudding), and with the kids sequestered in the kitchen's eat-in, it was a rare opportunity to enjoy crystal and china and candlelight and adult conversation (much of it very funny -- we were hilarious, though that might have been the wine talking :-). That part was splendid. So happy Simone's family and Jed were able to join us this year -- they really helped to make it feel at least a little like a proper Thanksgiving.