The Cure for the Tryptophan Hangover

City Mouse Now Country Mouse
No. 13

It is now December and while we are speeding our way toward Christmas, I have spent the past week missing Thanksgiving. It is my favorite holiday (with Easter as my other favorite). Why? There are two things you're expected to do at Thanksgiving--be with your family and eat great food. Honestly, what's not to like about that? This year, we went to Chicago for Thanksgiving to visit Aaron's family for the holiday.

We arrived on Monday and planned to share our time with Aaron's dad, sister and her family and his mother. The big family meal was planned for Tuesday evening at his sister Angela's home, and it was the first of our Thanksgiving meals.

This meal was followed by two other "Thanksgivings" both on Thursday. The highlight of Thanksgiving day for me was our turkey trot with our niece, Aubrey and nephew, Hunter. Hunter has been running cross-country in school and so the "boys" the trot as a run while we girls did the trot as a walk. It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm, sunny day. We made our race hats so that everyone would know that we were a family. The hats made many of the other "trotters" smile and I have to admit that this exactly my plan. (Thank you, Marc Cathey!)

Of course, the other commercial part of Thanksgiving is Black Friday. When we arrived at Aaron's father's after the race, I was greeted with three pounds of newspaper advertisements. You would have thought my Christmas came early! Since we moved to West Virginia, Aaron has driven each Sunday morning to the mini-mart to buy a sleeve of donettes and a Washington Post. While I get to read through the ads each week, I'm not near enough to most of the stores to ever take advantage of any of the deals. But this was different. I was surrounded by stores in the Chicago suburbs! I could feel my shopping juices rising and the next thing I know I was making a list and checking it twice.

And we spent all day Friday shopping and shopping and shopping. And while you might read that phrase as buying, buying, buying, that was not the case. I did buy a few things--when you fly United, carrying on saves you $25--honestly, I just enjoyed being able to see everything in person that I'd seen in a printed ad. Sad but true. I admit I am a capitalist. We arrived home on Saturday night and for most of the next week I moped about living in the middle of nowhere and with limited access to retail therapy. Boo-hoo.

The self-indulgent pity party ended during my tutoring session with one of my middle school boys. After we worked on some science homework, we each talked about our Thanksgiving vacation. He was excited because his older brother came home from college. It was obvious that he missed him and the highlight of the weekend was the family Thanksgiving day football game. Snap! Slap! My focus was readjusted and I was poignantly reminded of why I so love Thanksgiving in the first place. I love my husband's family but I realize more than ever how much I miss and love my family.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving--whether you ate and slept or ate and shopped or ate and played football. More than what you did on the day, I hope you spent it with those you love.