I'm Thankful She Eventually Got Over It...

As my mother is fond of saying each year after a holiday, "Another Thanksgiving shot to hell", which translates to "well, thank God that's over!" I personally love all holidays and have never shared this sentiment, but it has become such a tradition to say it that I felt the need to do the honors.

We had a nice Thanksgiving weekend back at the homefront. Corinne is so totally into the holidays this year. It started with Halloween and looking for decorated houses. As soon as it was over she wanted to know when the next one is, and even though Thanksgiving doesn't really hold a whole lot of appeal for a girl who doesn't really care about eating, she was excited to go to Mimmie's and Papa's (she thinks they live together, which is a subject that deserves its own post someday). She was also very excited about turkeys, having made a number of them in school over the past week or two. I'm not sure if she really gets the connection between the bird and the main course, but if she does it doesn't seem to bother her that we eat the funny little guy that she made a paper bag representation of.

Anyway, our Thanksgiving weekend was full of our usual traditions. Debbie, who I have known since I was 5 and my best friend growing up, came over for "Good Old Fashioned Family Game Playing Fun Night", a tradition that we started last year that involves a bunch of us drinking too much wine and beer and then attempting to play games that are far too complicated for drunk people, while reminiscing about Robinhood Court.

On Black Friday my mother, Erin, Corinne and I went shopping. We don't do the crazy 5 am thing, and it's usually not too crazy, plus there are some great sales. We had Corinne pick out her own gifts this year, since she has gotten so particular about what she will wear or even play with. It was a nice chick-day (Pete and Papa went to a bar and had a nice dude-day).

On Saturday we always go to the same craft fair. It's a big one with tons of people, and my fantasy to actually participate as a vendor one of these years. It's something like $100 to have a table, though, and you need a NY tax license.

I think the most memorable part of this particular Thanksgiving, though, happened on Wednesday night as we were driving to NY. We left around 8 pm because traffic is just ridiculous from about noon on. As is was we got stuck in ten miles of bumper to bumper just outside of Worcester. Pete was driving, despite the fact that he had only gotten 4 hours of sleep the night before and has been known to fall asleep while reading Corinne a bedtime story. For the record, I offered repeatedly to drive, having taken a nap and drank coffee in preparation. But he insisted that he gets bored as a passenger and usually can't sleep. Corinne was just starting to nod off, which was a score because usually she won't sleep in the car, and I was zoning out when I noticed that we did not seem to be slowing down despite the fact that the car in front of us was stopped. At the last minute I finally realized that Pete, too, had nodded off and I exclaimed something to the effect of "What the hell are you doing!?!" Too late. We bumped the car in front of us, who in turn bumped into the car in front of him. Fortunately we were only going 5 -10 mph and there was no damage or even insurance info exchanged. Corinne, however, was somewhat traumatized. I think my yell scared her and it did make a pretty noticeable thud noise. She cried for about 15 minutes and then for the next hour or so she kept asking questions to the effect of "Why Dadda crash the car?". I think she thought he did it on purpose, because she told him that crashing the car was "not good manners" and that she didn't want to go to sleep because "Dadda might crash the car again". Every time she seemed to be over it, after a few minutes of silence she'd suddenly say "I don't want Dadda crash the car again. Why Dadda crash the car?" It was kind of funny. For me anyway. Maybe not so much for Pete, who I'm sure felt extra guilty. I did have to say just one "I told you so", and needless to say I drove from there. I was a little bit worried that Corinne would never want to get into a car again, but she seems to have gotten over it. That in itself is something to be thankful for.

Turkey float, 2007 parade

Same shot, 2008