Thanks.

Thanksgiving is kind of my favorite holiday. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas. Christmas music, Christmas lights, Christmas cookies...you get the idea. But Christmas brings a lot of pressure. I always feel like I MUST feel the Christmas spirit, and every year it has to be like, omgthebestchristmasever.

And it usually isn't. And the day after Christmas is always a bit of a (huge) letdown.


So anyway, that's why Thanksgiving's my favorite. It's always a little hectic, making two stops, and typically eating two dinners. It's impressive, yes. The past two years, I've had this guy tagging along, which is awesome. He's the only person I've ever been with that I've deemed worthy of meeting, and spending any sort of time with my family. Also relevant is the fact that not many people can tolerate/find them amusing.

But he does. Really, he fits right in, THANK GOD. This year, no exception. It had been awhile since I'd seen my family, and even longer since we'd gotten to drink martinis and red wine, play cards, eat dessert, and also bacon. At 10:30pm. It hasn't been the easiest year for many in my family. So we needed it.

We needed the card game, the one my cousin kicks our asses at every single year. We needed the drunk dial we gave him when we called him in Phoenix, on his first holiday away from home.

We needed my stepdad to make us cosmopolitans, so my aunt could stealthily reach across the table to steal sips of mine. We needed the subsequent spills. I needed to laugh so hard I had to leave the room to compose myself long enough to swallow my sip of water.

We really needed to hear words like, "I won't pee on your chair", and have not a single person look remotely perturbed by it.

I woke up with a slight hangover, and a slightly sore throat from the talking over everyone, screaming, howling, singing. But I woke up feeling centered, like I had been put back where I belonged, in that slightly unbalanced puzzle. And really, really thankful. Grateful that the man I love and the family I love just click. And that the people I'm related to are also people I can RELATE to. I know not many people are able to say that.

But I'm really glad I can.