To be honest, I don't really mind. My mom and all my brothers are excellent cooks; I'd rather just enjoy the fruits of their labor and wash all the dishes afterwards.
This year, Thanksgiving was in San Jose, at my brother Tim's house. My parents stayed home and slummed it with us this year (they ran off to Hawaii last year). We missed the San Diego part of the family, but still managed to pack in a whole lot of fun in San Jose.
The San Jose crowd are an early-to-bed, early-to-rise crowd. Like the Army, they get more done in the morning than I get done the rest of the day. By the time I woke up on Thanksgiving, Tim and the kids were leaving for a turkey trot, and Kim was outside raking up leaves. Apparently, this was not going to be an idle holiday.
It was also Kim's birthday, and she wanted to ride bikes to celebrate. We rode over to the turkey trot, but got there just as the party was ending, and everyone was going home. Which was sad, but even more sad was the fact they were out of coffee. But it didn't slow us down; we just biked over to Starbuck's, where we ran into half the town of Willow Glen (seriously, Tim and Kim know everyone who lives there!).
My parents had arrived by the time we got home. After a round of hugs and hellos, everyone settled into the living room. Kim's dad Bill and his wife Carol were driving in from Redding, so we snacked and watched a Star Wars marathon while we waited for them. Mark and my nephew Nic were wild men, rotating between pillow fights in Nic's room and rousing soccer matches in the front yard.
Finally, it was turkey time! Chef Tim prepared a fantastic bird this year, and Mark got to carve it up.
Platters of food went around the table, and everyone served themselves. It wasn't until the dishes stopped passing that I noticed an absence.
"Where are the vegetables?" I asked Tim, staring down at my carb-laden plate.
"There are none!" Tim proclaimed loudly. He refused to make any, saying it's just filler. I thought of my brother Smed, who refused to let any vegetable (even a single green bean!) onto his plate, because he wanted to fill up only on meat and potatoes. I just smiled; seemed my family was all together, if only in spirit.
The meal was fabulous. Kim got a little bit ripped off, sharing her birthday with Thanksgiving, but Tim tried his best to make it a dual celebration.
After pie, the adults sat around the table chatting. The boys migrated outside again, and Hannah and I watched TV for a bit. She was cracking me up; she's a dangerous mix of both Dinsdale and Vincent, which makes for a lethally funny sense of humor. She got in a few really good cracks at me, and I just laughed, upholding the family motto of "It's okay to be mean, as long as it's funny." I also resorted to calling her Snarky Girl the rest of the weekend.
No one felt like fighting the shopping crowds the next day--the closest we got was mocking the Wal-mart campers on the news Thanksgiving night. Instead, we all sat around watching the movie "Big" and then travelled to nearby Campbell to visit an urban chicken store. Kim's all into getting some chickens, and I just cracked up--seems I'm visiting a lot of chicken and feed stores on my vacations these days! ;-)
There was also a toy store next door. Hannah and the boys ran off to that, and we eventually followed. It was a pretty cool store, and I especially liked the Santa and elf cut-out in front.
Our next excursion was to the panaderia for Mexican sweet bread. Along the way, we passed giant inflatable crab--I'm serious, this thing must've been at least one story high and probably twenty feet long.
"Holy crab!" Mark yelled from the back seat. I said, "Mark..." in a warning tone, and then burst into laughter. Kim reminded me of the funny motto, and I agreed, just felt like I had to give a little show of parental guidance.
Kim took us for another bike ride that afternoon. It was a nice mixture of mellow laziness, leftover food and exercise--the perfect day!
We made lots of fun of that giant crab, even talking it all up to my dad. But the funny thing is. later on that evening, we were stumped on where to go for dinner, and ended up going...you guessed it...to the seafood restaurant with the giant crab! (My family is so easy to sway.)
The food was okay, but the tools on the table were better. Mark immediately tied on a lobster bib, and then he and Nic started pounding each other with wooden mallets. It was funny for about two seconds, until they started pounding on the table.
It was just nice to hang with the family, and to be somewhere different. And even though it wasn't all that far away, it felt like it. We've had an extended summer in our part of California, and while that's pretty nice, I was really missing autumn. Turns out I found it in San Jose--all the trees were golden, red and purple. So it really felt like a fall Thanksgiving, with crisp air and gorgeous fall colors all around.
All in all, it was a wonderful couple of days.
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