Thankful

I have a lot to be thankful for, starting with family. My siblings all called in to convey their holiday wishes. After breakfast, we walked around the neighborhood with the dog, then my goddaughter and I settled down on the couch and heckled the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, joking about the ‘D’ list celebrities who kinda looked like more famous people, and the weird cartoon characters we didn’t recognize, particularly some ugly, jowly elves. After the Elf on the Shelf float passed by, we decided that we should make a Troll on the Bowl to put on the toilet to remind you to eat your fiber. She plays the clarinet in the school band, so we had nothing but kind things to say about the marching bands, aside from a joke conflating the brass section with a ‘brats’ section. We then watched the International Dog Show and went from joking that she needed twenty corgis to pull her around in a chariot, to joking that what she really needed was to breed St Bernard sized Dire Corgis (so she could take over Westeros, or something). Yeah, we get along famously.

Before dinner, the girls entertained me with a clarinet and xylophone recital. They have the school recital on December 4th, so they have been practicing the classics, such as ‘Good King Wenceslas’. They made me proud, something to be grateful for.

Dinner was great. I was given the task of saying grace, and I ended with asking my nephew to say what he’s grateful for, and he said, ‘My family.’ Cute moment! As usual, we joked about family and friends, with one particular story about a turkey dinner being topical. Years ago, we had about twenty of Vin’s army buddies coming down for the weekend, so we went with an economical way to feed a crowd- cook a turkey and cook a ham, so everybody could make sandwiches. Once out of the oven, the turkey was never even touched by cutlery- it was hand-dismantled by a pack ravenous young soldiers. They were skeletonizing the biggest turkey available to us like a school of piranhas. Baby brother Gomez was playing hockey that evening, and my oldest brother, Sweetums, had the presence of mind to grab a drumstick (Gomez’ favorite portion) and hide it in a shoebox in his closet.

Is there anything to be more grateful for than close friends and smart family? Well, there’s also having wonderful readers- thanks to all of you for your support, I love you all.