TURKEY DAY....gobble, gobble, gobble

I was so excited when Kev told me the return date for our trip would mean that we could stay for Thanksgiving. Of course, truth be told, Kev didn't even realize this until he called and told his mom the dates of our trip and she told him that we would be there for Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving. I think it is sad that the holiday is slowly getting forgotten. Before Halloween is over the Christmas stuff begins to show up in the stores and soon after that the Christmas music begins to fill the airways. Thanksgiving is a pretty significant holiday is you think about it. We are supposed to have a day to think about what we are thankful for. The pilgrims and the Indians took time to enjoy a good meal together so many years ago and they were definitely grateful for their freedom and their new home. A few days before Thanksgiving I explained to the kids what the holiday was for and we talked about what we were thankful for. Cooper surprised me when Jesus Christ was at the beginning of his list. Stuff like that always makes me feel like I am doing something right as a mother. Our families both rotate each year who they spend Thanksgiving with so this year happened to be an off year. Neither one of us had a big family gathering happening on Thanksgiving. However, John and Susan invited us first to go to their house so that was where our plans began. Kev's sister, who lives across the street from his parents, was already doing dinner with his parents so we did get some good family time together that day. We ate the traditional turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, salad, yams (well I didn't eat those, but others did), cranberry sauce, and of course pumpkin pie - I was going to take lots of pictures of the food for all of my Aussie friends, but I forgot. Sorry! After dinner we headed back to my parents house and spent the night with some of my family playing games and enjoying our last bit of time together.
It was a really relaxing day full of good food and of course time to look through the adds for the day after Thanksgiving sales. Black Friday as it is known is always a time I look forward to, but this year was different. Due to the fact that we were flying home that day I didn't really think that getting up at 4am was a very good idea for me, knowing that I wouldn't get much sleep and be traveling for almost 24 hours. We did get some shopping in before we left, but we didn't get up early to do it.