Thanksgiving weekend 2024.
I like Thanksgiving quite a bit, although I feel it’s become a prime example of the so-underrated-it's-overrated phenomenon. This is a concept derived in sports in which the general public collectively recognizes the value of a previously overlooked player all at once, and everybody starts talking about how underrated they are, thus, ironically, overrating them in the process. Ben Wallace for the 2000s Pistons is the guy I always think of whenever the topic of so-underrated-it's-overrated comes up. But when it comes to holidays it's Thanksgiving. I feel like I've been hearing recently about how great Thanksgiving is, and how actually it's better than Christmas. But that's a bridge too far me. If Thanksgiving is Ben Wallace, then Christmas is Shaq. Yeah, Thanksgiving is terrific, and on any given year you might have a better Thanksgiving than Christmas, but overall Christmas is the clearly superior holiday, in my opinion.
This particular Thanksgiving was pretty good. It's nice when you have the ultimate thing to give thanks for -- a family you love. I take that for granted so often, and so it is nice to have one day of the year when I am meant to explicitly acknowledge it. It's not just my household family either; it's all my UP family and my in-laws as well. The joke is always that it's hard to get along with family during the holidays, because of the figurative "racist uncle," but he doesn't really exist in my family. We're all mostly aligned in that regard. We have our differences, of course, but they're relatively minor. They often get blown out of proportion, and we fight about them, because that's what people do, but ultimately it's petty stuff that only seems important in the moment because it involves us personally -- the narcissism of small difference, I believe is the saying.
It helps a lot that nobody in my family is hard-core MAGA. That would be tough for me to deal with. I'm not talking about somebody who reluctantly voted for Trump because they are fed up with the Democrats -- I can understand that, even though I don't at all subscribed to it -- I'm talking about people who wear the red hats and go to the rallies and use terms like "cuck" and "libtard" unironically. I can get along with just about anybody, regardless of their politics, but MAGA cultists are where that "just about" comes into play. Ideological extremists are tough hangs for me in general.
It was just five of us this year for Thanksgiving dinner -- me, S, the boys, and S's sister. Lil' S1 and I did all the cooking. I did the turkey, potatoes, and stuffing; he did homemade bread rolls, slow-cooker mac and cheese, and a pumpkin pie. S's sister brought a cranberry, walnut salad, and that rounded out a delicious Thanksgiving meal. Lil' S1 is getting quite good at cooking -- baking in particular. My dad gave him this recipe for bread rolls, and he made them completely by himself. He also did some chocolate chip cookies -- the big fancy kind, not just the little simple ones from a tube -- the next day to take to our friends house that were absolutely delectable. My items came out decently as well. The only thing is that I wish I bought more gravy. I got enough for dinner, but not enough for leftovers, and Thanksgiving leftovers just aren't Thanksgiving leftovers without gravy. I mean, I can pick some up at the grocery store easily enough, but then I actually have to go to the grocery store. Why didn't I just buy like five packets in the first place, just in case? They're only a dollar each, and they keep for a long time. I don't know what I was thinking there.
We watched Christmas Vacation Thanksgiving evening to stay in the holiday spirit. It was my choice but, I must admit, not a very good one. The kids weren't that into it, and neither was I, honestly. About 20 minutes into it, I thought to myself, Oh yeah, that's right, this move isn't actually very funny. The best part is seeing young Juliette Lewis and Johnny Galecki.
The next day we went over to our friends' place, as they do Thanksgiving dinner on Friday, and it was so chaotic it was like a scene out of Christmas Vacation. Actually, it was more like Curb Your Enthusiasm, because our friend's dad was there, and he reminds me of Larry's dad on that show. I spent most my time watching football with him, and he was regaling me with factually suspect stories about Tobin Rote and Bobby Layne, and he kept calling one of the teams we were watching the Oakland Raiders, even though they moved to Las Vegas five years ago. Then there was this little four-year-old there, who was the most hyper kid I've ever seen, and I'm not that far removed from having super hyper kids myself, so I'm definitely not overly impressionable to such a thing. Also, our friends don't have much counter space, and they cooked a huge (delicious) meal, so there was food strewn everywhere about the house -- green bean casserole on a newel post, corn souffle on a book shelf, pumpkin pie on an end table. It was madness, but it was also quite fun.
On Saturday, S's sister took the kids to Wicked, and S and I went shopping in Georgetown. That's not typically an activity I would enjoy, but I actually liked it. It was really cold and crowded, and there was something comforting about seeing everybody bundled up, bouncing around from shop to shop. It reminded me of going to the Tacoma Mall around Christmas time as a youngster. The Borders Books, in particular, was the place to hang. My friends and I would spend hours there (only half of which was spent looking for parking) contemplating which books and CDs to ask for for Christmas. I've written about the decline of the retails store numerous times on this blog, so it's nice to see they aren't totally dead... yet.
Aright, that's about all I have time for today, so I'll leave you with a YouTube link. Seemingly every holiday season I binge watch something on YouTube. A few years ago it was Ryan George movie pitch videos. This year, it's been The Ricky Gervais Show. I've seen them all before, but it was so long ago, it's like I'm watching them fresh. Also, for a little twist, I watch them as part of a reaction video. There's really no reason for that other than it's just more fun to watch something funny with other people who laughing. The episodes are all brilliant, but this one might be the best.
Until next time...
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