Sharing Thanksgiving traditions

Not an unreasonable ask

Mother-in-law: You prefer dark meat, right? Legs and thighs?
Me: Yup.
Her: Good, because they’re all yours – we all prefer chicken breasts.
Me: Sweeeeeeet.

Mouse gave me a lift to see the boy and Alison’s family the day before Thanksgiving.

She’s been working non-stop since she started her new gig so I essentially drove while she conducted an interview in the passenger seat via her laptop. It was pretty impressive, I gotta say.

The boy ran out and gave me this huge hug and I could tell he wanted to give Mouse one as well but we all agreed that, while he was with my in-laws, there couldn’t be any physical contact with anyone.

So they stayed socially distant and chatted for a bit before she had to leave. She was only there for a few minutes before she made the long trek home.

The timing worked out perfectly because my sister-in-law was staying over Thanksgiving night so I had the guest room to myself that night.

A slight negative was that Mouse and I got into another argument on the phone after everyone went to bed, but, like the last one, it wasn’t a bad one.

Her: I just wish we could disagree on things without it becoming a war every time.
Me: That’s not an unreasonable ask. I’ll try to do better.

She’s just great, honestly. But I suppose that’s a post for another time.

Sister-in-law: How are you still eating?
Me: I believe in myself. Tonight, I’m carbing out like mad.

One silly but meaningful thing about Alison was that she told me that her family had three roasted chickens instead of turkey for Thanksgiving – cause no one really liked turkey.

I remember that I told that to my mom shortly after Alison and I had our first Thanksgiving together and my mother’s reaction was priceless.

Mom: Wait, can you do that?
Me: It’s not like you get arrested if you don’t have turkey. We should do that too – no one likes turkey here either.
Her: Really?!

Ever since then, we didn’t have turkey either. I like that, having a little shared tradition with my families.

As an aside, Mouse’s family doesn’t do turkey either.

Like at my house, I carved the chicken. I figure they know I can handle a knife.

Sister-in-law: (to my son) Do you want pie a la mode? That means pie with ice cream.
Him: Yes!
Her: Which one do you want? Pumpkin or Apple pie?
Him: Pumpkin!
Me: Then I’ll have the apple pie and we can try each other’s.
Him: OK!

The boy sang to me the entire time I was there. Although, to be fair, he sang to everyone.

Heading home was the start a ridiculous 2.5 hour adventure, but I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.

Location: in my head again
Mood: a bit better
Music: I’ll often stop and think about them (Spotify)
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