Thanksgiving weekend

This time of year is a love/hate season for me. I find the whole thing a little too trite and stress filled. This year has been a classic example of the roller coaster ride that is the holiday season. Some of this long weekend has been wonderful, some of it has been just stressful, a lot of it has just been plain funny.

So lets start with the beginning of the Holiday, Thanksgiving day. On this day we always travel to my in laws. They live in Frankfort which is about a 2 hour trip for us. Gracie is a great traveller so a couple hours is a piece of cake. My sister in law, Carol, does the whole thing up, turkey, ham, taters, dressing,veggies, salads, gravy, deviled eggs, macaroni n cheese, sweet tea, the whole deal including two home made desserts. It was a grand spread as it always is. I will of course try to one up her when she comes north to our house for Christmas. Carol is newly married so there were a few of the recent additions to the in law line up this year. I wont go into details but this is a source of stress. I just kept saying to myself, God forgave me of all that I have done and this is the place I need to show grace. I did, I will continue to do so, but its whats right, not whats natural.

On the way home is where the real fun part starts. We got to stop by and pick up Carly. Carly is the coolest 15 year olds on the planet. She is one of the PK's and I just love Carly. She is goofy as all get out, her energy level runs astronomically high until she crash lands, usually suddenly, she is moody as can be and often a very opinionated a loudly passionate teen with no sense of boundaries. I love her honesty. She respects you greatly if you respect her. The thing I love the most about Carly is the way she treats boogs. (Gracie). They play together at a frightening pace. Sometimes Carly is running loose acting 4 and the next thing I know Gracie is running loose acting like a teenager. They were upstairs playing makeup and they were both giggling constantly. After a few hours they are both to exhausted to function. Carly is the only person I know of who can were Gracie down all by herself.

Carly spent the night Thursday night so we could go do Black Friday shopping and hit the toy store without an ankle biter in tow. Black Friday at Kenwood Mall is no place for a kid, its not fit for man nor beast for that matter. Its the epitome of commercialism con wrong to be honest and we were willingly diving in the middle of it. We spent several hours chopping through the crowds with machetes and next time I think I will rent football pads from a sporting goods store before I attempt this again. You have to have the vision of Barry Sanders to make it in and out of this kind of crowd. We got 95% of all of our shopping done in one day, with spending only about 80% of what it would cost if done by safer means, so at least there was some payoff to the madness.

Angie and I had a blast to be honest about it. We never leave the house without Grace. This is the 6Th time ever and the 1st time it was an all day event, but we knew she was with Carly and wouldn't even notice how long we were gone. That night I got the pleasure of taking all three of them out to dinner at Red Robin. A unanimous favorite of the ladies. I just felt tremendously blessed to be taking out three such beautiful women. My wife, my daughter and my favorite "girl friend" (please don't misread anything inappropriate into that, Carly is my "girlfriend" by nickname because she is a young girl her and her entire family are my family by default. The other nickname used by Angie and myself for Carly is "sistafriend" because sometimes we take on the roll of big sister or big brother to her when she needs to talk) Anyway, I felt honored to be in their presents that night.

Next comes the most detested part of the season. We always decorate for Christmas on Black Friday weekend. I lug the stuff up and Angie decorates the house. I am charged with decorating the outside. I have become convinced of one thing over the last several years. The devil invented Christmas lights. After an hour or two of the neighbor trying to help me, the neighbor and my wife laughing at me, a few near death experiences, and a whole bunch of wasted money, I was done. Then we have the obligatory approval of the lights which of course means failure by husband and I get to redo at least half of what I had already done that I didn't want to do the first time. I don't like roofs, I cant stand ladders, but I detest lights. UHHGGGGGGGGG.

Then we have my parents over for a fried chicken dinner. They brought Gracie her very own little girl sized Christmas Tree for her room. Its pink with purple balls, little white snow flakes, and little white icicles. Let that sink in for a minute. The tree is pink. Yes pink. Brightly lit with white lights and pink. Even the cord that plugs the thing in is pink. Gracie feels so special because she has her very own special tree. Her very own pink tree. I don't know what else I can say other than its pink.