Thanksgiving- the condensed version

Hooray, Hooray! Thanksgiving is over.

I know it's bad to feel that way, but there is always plenty of stress to go around and despite the entire day being much less annoying than I had anticipated, there still were a few hiccups.

We headed out to my mom's for lunch- which started 30 minutes late because my Maw-Maw will be late for her own funeral.  To her credit, she did manage to get there before my brother though.  I was "adopted" by my Mom's-Husband's-Son's- 2 year old daughter Hayden. After 20 minutes of peeking at me and staring at me from around my mom, I finally just said "What!"  This is apparently how you make a 2-year old your bestie.  After that I had to push her on the swing outside for a good 15 minutes, which apparently just does not happen.  Only my mom is ever allowed to push her on the swing.  Following that, I had to carry her around the house, except the brief period of time when I convinced her to go play with her Dad's girlfriend's daughter (who's name escapes me).   She is a funny kid- she was climbing up me trying to get a hat (which Tim had tossed on her head and she threw back at him).  I knocked it off the back of the couch by accident, exclaiming "Oh Crap." Immediately she hollers "OH CRAP!"   It simultaneously cracked me up and made me feel bad that I had probably introduced a new word in to her vocabulary.

We left my mom's early.  I took a plate of food to my Dad, who I knew hadn't eaten yet (even though it was 3:30) and we sat around just enjoying each other's company until it was time to head to his side of the family's event. It went off pretty well, mainly because the younger cousins all stayed in the backroom and weren't underfoot.  Since my Aunt Teena has a small baby, she won't allow my Maw-Maw to smoke when the baby is there, so we only had to deal with two cigarettes as well (prior to the baby arriving).

The biggest headache of the day came when my Maw-Maw gave Tim her dachshund because "No one takes care of it".  She's supposed to belong to one of my younger cousins, but the dog is covered in fleas, my Maw-Maw can't take care of her, the cousin doesn't want her, etc. etc.  As we were walking out of the door with the dog, WWIII started as my aunt Teena got annoyed, the cousins were screaming "They are taking your dog! They are taking Rosie!" and the cousin in question had to be called for 15 minutes before she finally slunk in the living room with a half-hearted "Yeah. I want her."  It was ridiculous, because my grandmother had used Tim's good-hearted nature (he felt bad for the dog, we didn't want her) to try to make it in to this "Well then you better take care of her or she will really be given away" life-lesson.  Oh I was MAD.

At least Thanksgiving is over! I won't see my Maw-Maw or that side of the family other than my dad again until next year since their Christmas Party is always on Christmas Eve and Tim has a church service.

-Kristen