Holidays 2011

So I'm baking and cooking and shopping and planning for the big meal on Thursday. LOVE this time of year. But because 1/3 of my children will not be joining us it is also a time of year that leaves me melancholy and sad at times. And because of the hormonal challenges that accompany this age of my life I am alternately elated, depressed, angry, impatient, happy, hyper, or tearful. Right now I'm hyper and happy, so I thought this would be a great time to post a holiday blog. 

So the story behind the reason that my middle maiden does not join us from Chicago is that she was supposed to stay in Chicago the Thanksgiving of the first year she was away at college due to the cost of travel. But I couldn't stand the thought of her being away so, with help from Grandma, I secretly flew her home. Picked her up at Burbank airport, 20 minutes away on a good day. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is not a good day. It took us 6 hours (yes, I said 6) on the 5 freeway to get home. The first two hours were wonderful, full of catching up and reminiscing. After that there was a lot of lying and backpedaling on the phone to those at the house to try and keep Claire's arrival a secret, and other than that we were out of conversation. And had to pee really, really badly. I'm pretty sure by the time we got home everyone had figured it out. Claire and I are still scarred from the experience.

Needless to say, we haven't done that since, and she has established a wonderful tradition of making a feast at her apartment with the other ex-patriots hanging around. I'll never forget the first year of the feast and all of the phone calls I got about oven temperatures and how long it takes for a jello to set. Of course I loved every minute of it!

So Thursday we have some old friends joining us who we haven't seen in a couple of years. The needs of our parents have taken us away from each other recently, but we have decided to adjust as needed. This year my cousin won't be joining us because her daughter-in-law has a new job and is on call, so she wants to be available to spend an on-call Thanksgiving with them. I totally get it. Our family comes first, but in order of priority: Kids, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, lifetime friends, other friends, acquaintances. As kids move out and get jobs, as parents age, as siblings marry and procreate and divorce, things change and we flex with that change. Fortunately, in the United States, the holiday season starts at the end of November and lasts through the New Year. Hopefully we can all see each other at some time during the holiday season!