Our Thanksgiving Holiday Trip

I know it may seem like Thanksgiving was a hundred years ago and we have plunged headfirst into the Christmas season, but I have to do my recap of the holiday, it is becoming a tradition.

It seems we have developed a new tradition by leaving for the Thanksgiving weekend. Last year we skipped a family dinner, but this year we scheduled to have an early dinner at my brother and sister in laws on Wednesday night. It was the real deal with two deep fried turkeys and 20 or so people at the table. Alon took extreme precautions which included fire suit, cordoned area and safety glasses.

Always the safety glasses. The turkey was delicious; Owen did not eat any though, choosing to stick himself in the head with all the clean forks instead.


The next morning we took to the road and made it up to our family cabin with no puking and lots of daylight, but extreme cold. For us, that is. And I have learned that I should not trust my iPhone weather app for reliable reports, it said highs of 62, we experienced a high of 38 or so and some snow. Snow, people.

It may seem a little weird that we leave our family on the holiday that usually gathers them all together, but you have to remember we live with my family, like, directly in the same house, so the occasional ‘nuclear’ family time is good for us in many ways.

Thursday night I made a homemade chicken pot pie that initially tasted awesome, but later woke up from sleep with serious gastric issues. I am pretty sure we had bested the H1N1, so I must have poisoned us somehow. That was not so awesome.

We spend a lot of time at the Cabin hiking, then coming inside and eating, then going back outside to hike some more, than come back inside for some TV. The boys had a blast feeding the ducks and chucking rocks into the water, and just as much pleasure watching the Chipmunk movie we found abandoned by the TV. It was in heavy rotation and I actually came to find the little buggers weirdly cute. But it was some heavy rotation.


The boys were thrilled to see the snow early Saturday morning, there was a lot of shrieking and jumping and my new favorite phrase “yook at it, Daddy, yook at it, mama!” we were thrilled to see it was only a inch or so, pretty but not too much. It would not be cool to be snowed in with toddlers. There was also the tradition of visiting the town Santa for a quick picture, which really did not go over well. Owen seems to be okay with characters; Mason has no interest in getting near those folks. I did wrangle them into a few hand knits because it would not be a picture of the family unless they were wearing something I made, right?



It was a really nice time, but I have to say the while going away with kids thing is not getting easier. The sleep was shitty for all of us, maybe just too much of a change for them. They both woke up a lot, Owen at 10 p.m. most nights. He would open the door and stroll out into the living room. One night he was totally unable to sleep so he laid next to me and watched The Incredibles. A new experience for all of us.

They call the Cabin their Faraway home and the last night Mace woke up at 2:30 a.m. demanding his real home 'where the witches live' (huh?) and then would not sleep until 5. That was a rough one.

But you just roll with it, you know? And you love it for what it is. The walks by the pond, on the rocks, by the calm lake, in the trees. The experience is so totally different from the early years when it was our time. But this is the new Our Time.


And it always make me so very grateful to have our Real home, where there is a depth of people and hands and love, so much support, no vacuum. It is a place where we never feel alone and those extra hands and extra daily love make such a difference in our lives.

I love our Far Away home and will always look at it as a place of clean pine smell and peace in some way (even though that peacefulness looks so different these days). But I am so very thankful for this place we call our Real home.

And now we are ready to embrace some whirlwind weeks of holiday preparations. There is a freshly cut tree that came home stuffed in the back of the Subaru (literally hovering over the boys’ heads, but at least it masked some of the barf smell when Owen got sick 45 minutes from home). We have some lovely cinnamon ‘cookie’ ornaments made with lots of spills and lots of fun.


And a plethora of ideas.

(Those pinecones are coated with peanut butter then rolled in bird seed...an idea we are going to try on Christmas Eve for our backyard birdies)


Bring on the holiday making, I am feeling so excited about it all. Um, just realized I did miss Day 1 of Advent calendar opening. Will rectify in the morning.

:: All the pictures are in set here on Flickr

:: And if you want to read my interview from the GIE it is here, entitled :: Amiee the Beer Drinkin' Knitter. Woot. Have to admit I wrote it while tipsy so it is pretty appropriate.