Thanksgiving

This year we are headed to St. Louis for Thanksgiving. The plan is for me to meet the rest of my husbands relatives, and for him to see people he hasn't seen in 6 or 8 years.
There will be several cousins there, who are all over 17 or so. We have a fun couple days planned that include a trip to the City Museum and the Art Museum.
[side note: i love to visit art museums everywhere we go. you never know what unexpected awesomeness you are going to see. in Pitsburgh we saw the largest collection of plaster architectural reproductions in the world... i think. and a wonderful set of sketches of California style houses from the 50 or 60s]

Who knows what will happen. every family has their crazy, on some level or another. Every family has their traditions.

Being away from home for the second Thanksgiving in a row has me thinking about my family's traditions and funny [now] stories.

Story: We were eating with my dads side of the family, who all live in another state. being the holidays things quickly diverged into their usual pattern. some bickering, some poorly worded comments, etc.
my grand mother made a Waldorf salad. it was good. this is the same grandmother who makes my favorite date roll cookies. after dinner my mother asked if she had put dates in the salad- it was different, but good. "No. it was SNICKERS. AND IT WAS GOOD."
heh. dont question it.

on the other hand, my parents have formed a tradition of pulling the deep fryer out into the drive way. making drinks and appetizers and inviting anyone who wants a deep fried turkey, to bring one over. people hang out, drink, eat, have a good time. it lasts all day. usually they have a invite to the neighbors house in the evening, for an actual sit down dinner. i really like the eating all day and seeing lots of different people.

Last year we hit tow different turkey days in Seattle. both involved a large number of people we are sketchily related to due to marriage. the first was the huge family and friend dinner, that i had been hearing aobut for years, on the account of their being just an awful lot of pie involved- like a pie or two for every person there. The other was also a big extended family party. where we were given some more pie. it was a good deal.
we followed all that up the next day with a family dinner involving crab, pie [:)] and ice skating.

Cant wait to see what this year brings.