Happy Thanksgetting Crazy

Ahhhhh, the smell of red apple cider, and smokey fires leads the heart to a place of family and food, football and friends. You picture yourself at a large table, every one's faces with cheerful glow and attentive gratefulness for all you are doing. ( record scratch)

Or, maybe it looks a little like this. Your holding the corn souffle with two hands (one without a oven mit) while kicking the oven door shut so the toddler doesn't stick her grimy little lollipop hands in it and get burned. Meanwhile, the husband and friends are watching football in your living room with their feet up, periodically chirping in: "wow, that smells great....Im gonna get fat today". This is only the before meal moments, the during and apres are the most stressful, making sure everyone is served ( while you chug some wine in between filling glasses) and the god-awful countless chore of dish washing. These are the kinds of dishes you cant rinse and flop into the washer, they are serving platters, goblets, butter boats, and hand painted cutesy gifts you have to use so people don't get offended.

I say all of this, not with ill-gratitude, quite the opposite. It is the strangest self-induced chaos anyone could commit to, yet we do, and look forward to it. At least I do. There is something predictably delightful about it, in the same strange way cranberry sauce from a can is curiously the completion of a good-cooked meal. It is both a poetic dance in the kitchen and purposeful prose in the result of sated happy family members.

I am Thanksgetting crazy, and grateful.