Thanksgiving, I Mourn Thee

Thanksgiving weekend, for me, is the kickoff to the holiday season. First, you have the day itself; family, food, and a lot of good feelings to be had. Two days later, we're off to find our Christmas tree, on our annual hunt. Shortly after that is our anniversary, another fun stop along the way. Then there are parties, and presents, neighbor visits, and again, more food. It's great fun, and a very magical time of year. This year, however, our Thanksgiving was one for the books. And not in a good way.

We knew months ago that Teag would be out of town for Thanksgiving and tree hunting both, and though we were incredibly disappointed, we'd shored ourselves up for it, even fortuitously discovering that some friends of our would be visiting their parents a few hours from where Teag would be, thus enabling him not to sit in a lonely hotel for the family-oriented holiday. Things were looking up. Then the Tuesday before he left, Teag came down with one of the nastiest stomach bugs I've seen in a while, sick as a dog, barely able to move, and couldn't even keep water down. Not great when he's supposed to be on a plane to Oklahoma the next day. My dad and a neighbor gave him a blessing, and thankfully he started to rally in the evening, enough that he was able to hop on that plane and do what he needed to do.

That night, in a fit of clumsiness, I hurt my wrist in such a way as to make using my left hand rather painful. I didn't think much of it at the time, believing it would feel better the next morning. Not so! The pain kept me awake for a good portion of the night, and made even the simplest of chores agonizing. Guess who was in charge of the mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner? That's right! Nothing like peeling/chopping/mashing ten pounds of potatoes with a gimpy wrist. It took me twice as long as it should have, and hurt a ton. I resorted to wrapping it in an ace bandage for the rest of the day to try and immobilize it as much as possible.

We did have a few gems from the day such as this:

This resulted during a spontaneous game of "Corners", the two of them initiated it themselves, and seemed to have a blast dancing together. It was adorable. After Finn was done dancing, he decided to relax.

My entire family also got quite a chuckle out of Dany's dinner prayer, when she blessed that "Dad would have a good Thanksgiving in boring Oklahoma." It was funny to hear all of the suppressed chuckles around the table after that disgruntled statement.

Unfortunately our Thanksgiving weekend follies weren't quite finished. Friday passed mostly without incident, other than I started feeling a little queasy as I was talking with Teag that night before bed. I'm sure you can see the writing on the wall. Saturday morning dawned after a very sleepless night, and I felt terrible. Sick to my stomach, and body aches that made even small movements feel like torture. I knew there was no way I could haul four kids up in the mountains and tromp through the woods feeling like I did. I also knew they were going to be horribly disappointed. I called my parents to let them know I couldn't go, and shortly after that my dad called me back to say that they'd made arrangements to take the three girls. As much as I appreciated this, I knew I couldn't look after Finn by myself that day, not in my current condition, but I didn't want to deny my kids the chance to go. I told Maisie what Grandpa had said, and she volunteered, without me saying a word about it, to stay home to look after Finn. I was so proud of her in that moment. It was such a sweet, selfless thing of her to do, and heaven knows I needed her help. I was so grateful to my family for taking Dany and Rory as well, it was good for them to get out of the house and have an adventure.

Today is now our anniversary. 14 years. It's a Monday, Rory's sick, I still feel a bit queasy, the older two are in school, and we've got laundry to do, and a Christmas tree to set up. Romantic, eh?

So that was our disappointing kickoff to the holiday season. I sincerely hope that it's not indicative of how the rest of the month plays out. No pictures, no fond memories of picking out the perfect tree. We've been tree hunting together every year since I was pregnant with Maisie, never missing one, until now. It's one of my very favorite traditions, and my disappointment about how that worked out is acute, to say the least. Teag did end up having a good time with the Steel's so that was a bright spot. They were very welcoming, and we'll be forever grateful to them for that.

Here's hoping there's only better things to come!