Yet Another Guest Blog

It's Thanksgiving Night. I've been up since 6 AM, prepared enough food to feed a small third-world country, and polished 700 pieces of china, crystal, and silver that haven't seen sunlight for the last 12 months. In another eight hours it will be pitch dark, two hours before sunrise, below freezing -- and time to go Christmas shopping. I tried to beg off (and thus gain a little more sleep) by reminding my daughter (the leader of the shopping expedition) of my sacred obligation to post a Friday blog. It almost worked. She wrote the blog for me.

THANKS FULL

by Hilary Blair

Well, today was Thanksgiving. Miraculously enough, my mother did not burn anything, the turkey cooked in less than 11 hours, and the pit bull did not eat the turkey carcass – all big improvements over past years.

We played the Blair Family Traditional Monopoly game. We’ve played this every year for as long as I can remember, and every single year my brother, Matt, wins. I was bankrupt within the first half-hour today, but that was okay with me. I really hate playing games, but I do grace my family with my presence around the game-playing table once a year or so. Anyway, three hours and about 72 million dollars later (it was that new version of Monopoly where they put all the money in millions to confuse people) my mom became the new Thanksgiving Day Monopoly champion. This just proves that miracles really DO happen during the holidays, even miles away from 34th Street.

When the grandmothers had finally arrived and we had all gathered around the table, the feast began. We did have one fewer person dining at our table this year. Scott, my oldest brother, is serving our country in South Korea and will also be gone for Christmas. We missed him, but we don’t worry too much. He told us just last night that he’d been invited to two Thanksgiving parties — one at church and the other at the prison where he works as a medic. Personally, I thought the prison party would be better – or at least more exciting – but knowing him I bet he went to church.

We all stuffed ourselves full of delicious food and homemade pumpkin pie and then watched “Christmas with the Kranks” and played another game – Pirates of the Caribbean Life. (I didn’t win that one, either.) We are now all preparing to go to bed so we will be ready to go out before six tomorrow morning to shop.

We have a lot to be thankful for.