Thanksgiving Recap

First, a finished object!! My socks are done. I love them.



Lately I feel like I've been running from trip to trip, hurrying to get my laundry done and squeeze out a blog post before I leave. I am only just back to normal after my Thanksgiving trek home. Laundry is drying on the folding rack and it had better dry fast because tomorrow I am off to Phoenix for a work trip. I've had a reprieve from work travel for a few months, but now it picks up again. I do enjoy most of the travel, but this Dec. trip I take every year is rough: when I return home, Dec. whizzes by and I am always a step behind, getting my tiny Christmas tree up and shopping and don't even think of baking.

But, I will have lots of time to knit on the ONE small present I am knitting this year that I can't work on at home.

I knit a lot last week on the drive to and from Wisconsin. Thanksgiving was wonderful. In my family, it is not just a day. It's an four-day event. On Wed. my mom bakes the first turkey (she needs two huge birds to feed 40some people). G and I made the cranberry sauce. Ok, I just stirred it once; it was his project. Wed. night is the first family dinner with my grandparents and brothers and sometimes an aunt's family who came in early.

Then on Thursday, the crowds trickle in. Or usually come all at once and you kiss like 20 people in five minutes. My mom's four sisters and two of her cousins and all their families come for the weekend. Another turkey is cooking, plus potatoes and stuffing and gravy and all the other stuff. Everyone pays $6 for eight changes on the football pool grid (I didn't win any cash this year; in fact I haven't won since college, when the $8 was a HUGE windfall!).

I got to hold nephew number one. He was tiny and adorable and slept a lot, except for each time I held him when he was fussy. But we discovered that G has "the bounce" that puts babies to sleep. Good to know.

Baby O and grandpa taking a nap:



My brother came w/ my niece M. My sister-in-law and the other baby boy stayed home to rest w/ her mom. Little M is not yet three and is already a world traveler. She's been to Canada, of course (seeing as she is half Quebecoise), Japan, France, England, I'm not sure where else ... So, she does fine on the plane. And it was her first trip with just Papa. I don't think she even noticed that her maman was not there. After all, she had an entourage of my younger girl cousins for the next three days. At almost all times there was a group of five girls surrounding her. She loved it!


So, Thursday is spent eating (mostly), napping, watching football, catching up with relatives, playing games and more eating.

A few of my younger cousins knit. In fact they are the ones who started the knitting craze in my family. One summer vacation two middle-schoolers taught all the women how to knit. Here's two working on scarves:



Then on Friday, we have leftovers for lunch and then about 34 of us (we lose a few to basketball tournaments, naps, work) trek to the a movie. This year it was Happy Feet. We arrive at least an hour early to get in line. And when they open the doors, we are that annoying family running to save three rows of seats. Happy Feet was cute; G could not stop laughing at it. He hasn't seen a children's movie since, probably, he was a kid. "It's about a penguin who tap dances to get more fish!" he kept repeating.

Friday night dinner is always chili and another soup. In the past I've made tortilla soup, but this year it was my uncle's hamburger soup. My aunt J makes the chili and homemade butter (she does this with her kindergarten class; I don't know how, but it is tasty!).

After dinner some of us played a very fun game called Mafia. One person narrates the game and designates a few people to be mafia and the rest townspeople (with a doctor, cop and vigilante for good measure). The mafia know who each other are, but everybody else just knows what they are. Then you have town meetings where you try to decide how is bad and then vote to execute one person. This could be a mafia or a townsperson. You don't really know. Then everyone goes to sleep and the mafia wake up to kill a townsperson. And it goes on until there are just a few people alive and the winners are the group that dominates: if there are more mafia alive; they win, etc. Google it for more info. It is fun and a good game to play with adults and kids. And good for new people to get to know the family. It was G's second Thanksgiving with us, and he did really good w/ the adults, but the little girls were all one to him until playing Mafia. Now he can see them as individuals, instead of M's entourage.

Saturday is usually shopping for the women and sports-watching for the guys, but G and I left on Sat. since we had to drive home. We packed up our car w/ tons of wedding gifts and were able to bring everything home except a mixer. Don't have counter space for it anyway.

I did a lot of knitting and (finally!) finished those socks! I like them and I liked doing socks, but I think I am going to take a break from them for a bit to work on bigger projects.