We Give Thanks

I am so Thankful for family holidays that involve game playing, lots of laughing, presents, eating, football, naps and 4 day weekends.  Our Thanksgiving this year was all of the above.  

We left on Wednesday afternoon and made it to our first stop of Philadelphia in pretty good time considering we were traveling the shit storm that is 95 north.  Excuse my french.   We of course had a few cocktails upon our arrival and then I chugged two giant bottles of water in preparation for my 5 mile turkey trot in the am.  7:00am came too fast per usual but I was up and dressed and ready to take on Fairmount Park with close to 650 other racers...in the freezing cold.  I did fairly well and ran 9 or so minute miles which I would say is pretty good considering I haven't worked our regularly for the past 2 years.  I made a commitment to get back on the exercise wagon and I have been successful for the past 3 weeks as I have prepared for the surf n Santa 10 miler in VA Beach this Saturday.  Back to the turkey trot-the best part was that I crossed the finish line as it began to snow.  This is the second year in a row we have had snow on Thanksgiving.  Love it.  

When we arrived home, we warmed up with hot tea and couch time before getting ready for our Thanksgiving feast at my Uncle's house in New Jersey.  Guess what-we hit traffic on the way there,  Shocking.  Once we arrived we were met by wine, apps, and a fantastic meal with family.  Someone may have overindulged in the wine and put on a hilarious show for the rest of us.  I won't mention any names.  Hehe.  But we did all decide that excessive celebrating should be allowed in football and that touchdown dances are amazing.  I was flip video-ed doing my rendition of a touchdown dance.  Can't decide if I am brave enough to post here or not.  

On Friday morning we shopped.  Jeff and I are notorious last minute Christmas shoppers.  We just prefer it that way-where is the fun in being prepared weeks ahead of time?  (I love you, Amy)  But because I won't see a single member of my family over Christmas, we decided to do Christmas on Black Friday.  We each made a list of 5 things we wanted that cost $100 or less.  Then we placed our slips in a bowl and we all drew names.  We then drove to the Garden State Mall with the rest of New Jersey and we had 1.5 hours to find one item off the list of the person whose name we drew.  It was so much fun racing around the mall looking for the perfect item and making it back to our meeting place in time.  Our frenzied shopping trip was followed by lunch, a quick Christmas Tree purchase for Ash and Jay, a stop at the grocery store where mom may or may not have slipped on a grape and eaten shit when she thought she spotted the shallots (glad you are OK, Mom)  and then a return to Potter Court.  We decorated the tree and hoped it would remain standing despite the shisty tree stand they had (it didn't-several ornaments perished) and then exchanged gifts.  There was a jewelry box for Ashley, a flip video for me, a skirt and tall black boot worthy sweater, pajamas, and a bookstore gift card for mom, a photo slide converter for dad, a blueray DVD player for Jason, and some hunting swag for Jeff.  We have decided to make this type of gift exchange a tradition because let's be honest-as soon as Baby Emala arrives and Jeff and I have some mini me's of our own-the tiny tots will get all the gifts anyway.  

We spent the rest of the night feasting on mom's balsamic chicken, Jeff's mashed potatoes and um, I made frozen peas and playing Imagineiff. BEST GAME EVER.  I then promptly fell asleep on the couch. 

On Saturday morning, I needed to run 8 miles.  BLAST.  I had one internal conversation with myself where I almost didn't do it but then I manned up, put Lady Gaga on Pandora and ran the 8 miles around Montclair, NJ.  The rest of Saturday was spent watching VT football, Maryland football and a few of us spent a good portion of the day watching the inside of our eyelids.  Jeff and I then cooked dinner.  I was responsible for something less embarrassing this time-asparagus and venison sauce and Jeff made his grandmother's pumpkin pie and grilled venison.  Delish.  

Dinner was followed by a game of Last Word. 

On Sunday we feasted on brunch with more members of our extended family and then we spent 8 hours in the car.  I hate 95!

This was such a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend and the only thing that would have made it better would have been the arrival of my new niece but, alas, she is just as stubborn as her mom and is hanging out inside for a bit longer.