Thankful

Yesterday, I thought long and hard about the amount of leftovers that would result from cooking even a minimal Thanksgiving dinner, given that it would be eaten by one adult with a normal appetite, one adult with absolutely no appetite and a preschooler. And then I thought briefly about dealing with raw turkey, and once I was done controlling my heaving stomach, I decided we should go out. So we went to a movie yesterday afternoon and then out to a restaurant serving a very nice Thanksgiving dinner. We had fun and we were together as a family, which makes it a good holiday in my book. We still have an uncooked turkey breast in our refrigerator, but if worst comes to worst, we can put it in the freezer to wait for Christmas.

Sadly, the father of the friend who was going to spend the weekend wound up in the hospital yesterday, so while they spent the night last night, she had to leave today to drive back to Detroit. Sigh. The amount of time we got to spend together was lovely and I'm glad we had that much.

My benchmark for the worst Thanksgiving ever was the year I spent in England, where I had a normal full day of classes and then went home to a lonely plate of stirfry. Which I dropped on the kitchen floor, breaking one of my two plates. I couldn't even get together with any of my American friends because they were all various Thanksgiving dinners organized for them by the various advisors assigned to us by the university, but the person who was in charge of the Thanksgiving dinner I was getting wasn't able to do it on Thanksgiving year.

This year, while not necessarily our absolute best, wasn't nearly that bad. I missed our family and friends, but I'm grateful that we still have them, that my mother is relatively healthy and independent and that we'll be seeing them next month. I'm always grateful for my husband and daughter, and this year for my inch-long passenger making me so sick. I'm so, so grateful that with the number of jobs being lost, B will not be losing his, even if he has to go down a grade. I hope all of you were able to spend your holiday with people you love.