Tomorrow will be the first Thanksgiving we’ve spent without seeing any family.
We had plans to spend Thanksgiving in Florida and Christmas in North Carolina but at the last minute things got switched up and so we find ourselves in North Carolina, all by our lonesomes. Everyone’s going out of town, it seems. Or having family come in town. The city feels empty, regardless.
I think up until today, I’ve been in a bit of denial that we’ll be alone for Thanksgiving. I even bought a turkey and the stuff to make a green bean casserole (it was on sale). For the Thanksgiving dinner I won’t be making this year. (And how am I going to con our friends—who will likely be spending the weekend eating so much they won’t want to even see another turkey until next November—into coming over to help us eat our eighteen-pound bird?)
I remember Thanksgiving in college, when Marianne would pass up invitations to join us in Titusville for Thanksgiving dinner, her parents being all the way in Japan. I couldn’t understand it then—Thanksgiving with non-family was better than no Thanksgiving at all, wasn’t it? But now I totally get it. I’d rather just cancel the holiday altogether and skip right onto Christmas.
Tomorrow we’re going to John and Michelle’s “Thanksgiving for the people who don’t get to be with family” party, and I’m sure we’ll have a nice time. And people have been really sweet to us, inviting us over and everything. I’m just ready for the whole thing to be over. I don’t want any more reminders. Ungrateful much? Yeah. And during the holiday where the whole point is gratitude. Don’t think I don’t get the irony. Ha. Well, I promise the wallowing will be over by the time everyone gets back in town.
So, anyway. Here’s looking forward to Friday.
2 Comments
Holidays are just one of those bittersweet kinds of things, I think. Their celebration tend to be filled with tradition, and that’s something people tend to inherit from family along with DNA and whatnot. I’ve always felt lacking in that area, perhaps now more than ever, with my dad in rehab. I’ll be hanging out at Zea’s house on Thursday, and while I’m glad of it, it’s less about sharing a holiday celebration and more about having some place to be while everything’s closed and everyone’s busy, to be blunt about it. It’s a funny thing, how perfectly content I can be holed up with a book and ignoring everyone…until solitude is enforced by the evidence that no one’s around to be ignored.
“…it’s less about sharing a holiday celebration and more about having some place to be while everything’s closed and everyone’s busy” and “It’s a funny thing, how perfectly content I can be holed up with a book and ignoring everyone…until solitude is enforced by the evidence that no one’s around to be ignored.” –exactly! You absolutely nailed how I feel right now.