It's going to be SUCH a great Thanksgiving this year. I don't get nearly as excited about the turkey holiday as I do over Christmas, but this year it's going to be wonderful chaos: my aunt Sharon and her son Brian and daughter Libby, my Uncle Scott and Aunt Susan and their son Jake, and then Dad and me and Natalie and Erick all squished into my grandparents' Akron home. Will there be blood and carnage? You better believe it. But am I TOTALLY revved for this thanksgiving? No doubt about it.
That's what makes this thanksgiving SO worth looking forward to and bearing interrogation and hiding in the bathroom away from my grandmother - Brian will be there with me, my best bud, my long lost identical twin, my brother from another mother. He's the one person who can incite me to troublemaking, and boy can we get into it. I completely forget that I'm a legal adult and go at it with him in everything. I talk with him on the phone in the bathtub, and there have been several phone calls where either one or both of us have been talking to each other while in our closets. But together in Akron we'll stay up late, he'll make me laugh till I almost wet the bed, we'll read Dooce and actually wet the bed together, and if it snows we are SO making a fortress in the big pine tree by the road and storing up snowballs and fending off the other four grandchildren in one gigantic snowball fight which will end in one of the little ones crying for no especially good reason.
I can almost predict the holiday timeline...my grandmother 'slaving' in the kitchen and getting someone to help her just so she can interrogate them over a steaming turkey...my grandfather showing off his train track which takes up 80% of the basement and is the most detailed model you've ever seen (he named the diamond mines after my Aunt Diann in Texas, while I got the Heather Coal Mine down the lane)...my Aunt Susan and Uncle Scott will be dressed warmly and fashionably and will laugh with my Dad in the basement long and loud because of jokes they tell about my family...my Aunt Sharon will try and get in on the joke as best as possible, but because of the tight-knit triangle they have and her time away she might help my Nana in the kitchen...8-year-old Jake will drive Brian crazy by being his mini shadow and bouncing off the walls to get his attention...Brian will get a little jealous of sharing me with the rest of the family but I'll calm the waters with him by staying up extra late with just him...my 12-year-old sister will try and get in on the fun Brian and I have but will be forced to play most of the time with the younger kids, but she gets to be in charge (her favorite thing) so she'll survive that with ease...my 11-year-old brother will be brought to tears at least once by the bossy nature of 8-year-old Libby the Horrible (the stories I could tell you about her)...and the dinner will be more warm and wonderful and if there's snow outside all the grandkids will be wolfing down food and squirming in their chairs and begging to be let outside because for goodness sake there's SNOW out there that hasn't been PLAYED in yet and that's just not ALLOWED and The Adults will relent (remember, I'm not an adult) and we'll dive into our snow gear and tromp around outside in the sparkling whiteness as The Adults heat up some coffee and tell stories about their kids to catch up with each other until a hour or two later The Kids come back inside, stomping snow and muds off their boots into the carpet, rosy cheeked and laughing and tired and ready for some hot chocolate and warm, dry clothes.
I...CAN'T...FREAKING...WAIT!!
That's what makes this thanksgiving SO worth looking forward to and bearing interrogation and hiding in the bathroom away from my grandmother - Brian will be there with me, my best bud, my long lost identical twin, my brother from another mother. He's the one person who can incite me to troublemaking, and boy can we get into it. I completely forget that I'm a legal adult and go at it with him in everything. I talk with him on the phone in the bathtub, and there have been several phone calls where either one or both of us have been talking to each other while in our closets. But together in Akron we'll stay up late, he'll make me laugh till I almost wet the bed, we'll read Dooce and actually wet the bed together, and if it snows we are SO making a fortress in the big pine tree by the road and storing up snowballs and fending off the other four grandchildren in one gigantic snowball fight which will end in one of the little ones crying for no especially good reason.
I can almost predict the holiday timeline...my grandmother 'slaving' in the kitchen and getting someone to help her just so she can interrogate them over a steaming turkey...my grandfather showing off his train track which takes up 80% of the basement and is the most detailed model you've ever seen (he named the diamond mines after my Aunt Diann in Texas, while I got the Heather Coal Mine down the lane)...my Aunt Susan and Uncle Scott will be dressed warmly and fashionably and will laugh with my Dad in the basement long and loud because of jokes they tell about my family...my Aunt Sharon will try and get in on the joke as best as possible, but because of the tight-knit triangle they have and her time away she might help my Nana in the kitchen...8-year-old Jake will drive Brian crazy by being his mini shadow and bouncing off the walls to get his attention...Brian will get a little jealous of sharing me with the rest of the family but I'll calm the waters with him by staying up extra late with just him...my 12-year-old sister will try and get in on the fun Brian and I have but will be forced to play most of the time with the younger kids, but she gets to be in charge (her favorite thing) so she'll survive that with ease...my 11-year-old brother will be brought to tears at least once by the bossy nature of 8-year-old Libby the Horrible (the stories I could tell you about her)...and the dinner will be more warm and wonderful and if there's snow outside all the grandkids will be wolfing down food and squirming in their chairs and begging to be let outside because for goodness sake there's SNOW out there that hasn't been PLAYED in yet and that's just not ALLOWED and The Adults will relent (remember, I'm not an adult) and we'll dive into our snow gear and tromp around outside in the sparkling whiteness as The Adults heat up some coffee and tell stories about their kids to catch up with each other until a hour or two later The Kids come back inside, stomping snow and muds off their boots into the carpet, rosy cheeked and laughing and tired and ready for some hot chocolate and warm, dry clothes.
I...CAN'T...FREAKING...WAIT!!
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