My thanksgiving was alright. I've noticed, though, the older I get the less magical holidays get. I'm not sure if it's because I'm grown up and not as easily impressed anymore, or the half-assedness that seems to infect my family more and more each year.

Because this year it was just me and my parents, 3 people. The turkey and mashed potatoes were the only dishes that took any real work, the only other things we had were cranberry sauce from the can, prepackaged rolls, microwaveable green beans, and store bought pie. Store bought key-lime pie, no less. AND she wouldn't clear off her side of the table to make it nice for us. She wouldn't even take the damn TV off the table this year, though she at least turned it off during the meal, which she never has the consideration to do during a normal dinner.

I admit: my mom was sick. So... it would suck to make her bang out a hugely impressive meal. AND honestly, I have always been soley about the mashed potatoes and rolls, so no weird cranberry dish or green bean dish was not that big of blow (though I did kind of miss the pumpkin pie despite the store-bought key-lime being surprisingly excellent).

BUT, she won't let me cook either to make a pie or anything else to make the dinner fancier. AND she doesn't even have to do much with the turkey, my dad always grills it.

Anyway, it also kind of made me sad because this is the first year we don't get thanksgiving with my sister. Her husband's parents are divorced and remarried, so between them and us, that's like three thanksgivings she has to go to in a day. And on top of that, now she has a kid to cart around with her. So my mom was like, "Yeah, you can skip our thanksgiving if you want, maybe we'll go out to eat at a restaurant sometime together to make it up." Which, pissed me off because my mom told me point blank that if I had to work this weekend I wouldn't get in on the make-up thanksgiving dinner, and end up not seeing my sister and the phew at all for thanksgiving. And believe me, my sister wouldn't contact me to see me. Whenever we do anything that the parents don't choreograph, I'm the one who always has to call her and get the ball rolling. Every time. But.. thankfully I did end up with one day off this weekend, so I'll be able to go.

I'm hoping maybe my sister will stop being such a pushover to her husband's two familys and just say, "You know what, I'm going to make my own thanksgiving and you can come if you want, but if you don't, screw you I'm not going to drag my baby to both of your houses and not even see my own family." And then maybe we could all just have thanksgiving at her house. But then again, she sees mom and dad like, every week, they're all such good buddies, I'm the Robert of my whole Everybody Loves Raymond freakin' family, the only one she doesn't see that often is me, so she probably wouldn't think it's worth it just for that.

I think that's the real reason so many people claim to hate the holidays and birthdays and other special occaisions. Just because they're sad it can't be like when they were kids. I'm hoping now that we do have a kid in the family, I can maybe start living vicariously through him when he gets old enough to know what holidays are.

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