Thanksgiving and Everything After

Normally, me and the wife would pack up our meager potluck offering and head to my brother's place for Thanksgiving. This year though, Jen's mom flew into town, and as a result we wound up deciding to kick it at our house this year for the big feast. Now, I've never cooked Thanksgiving dinner in my life, but I figured I could muddle through. I did. Homeboy cooked it up and surprisingly everything came out pretty well. It might even stick as a new tradition. We'll see.

Friday, we just stayed close to home, drinking wine and watching movies. In the past, I've always referred to Black Friday as Godfather Day since we'd stay home and watch Godfather I & II (never...ever III). But, in mixed company we settled on me hitting Blockbuster for some flicks and then surfed the couch. I started getting antsy by the end of the day, feeling like I wasn't getting anything done, but it was good to just hang out with Jen's mom and kind of reconnect a bit with her.

Saturday was straight up drunkeration. We headed out to a couple of wineries and wound up bringing a case home with us to replenish a supply that had taken a surprising hit over the previous two days. With our supplies tucked away in the racks, we ended our night with yet more leftovers and opened a few bottles.

Our last day together was spent shopping. Jen's mother very generously gave us a bit of a Christmas present early. Jen wanted curtains, so we got to go shop for those. I've never shopped for curtains before, but it was exactly as much fun as I thought it might be. My mood lighted though once I was told that there would be enough cash left over for a record player. I've picked out a very basic model that I'm going to set up in the den with a new component system. Very old school. Can't wait.

And that's that. Mom-In-Law flew back Monday morning, and I'm back at work fighting a cold and just fighting to get through to another weekend. We're quickly using up 2008, and I gotta be honest, I'm not going to miss much of it. There were high points for sure, but I think mostly it was the kind of year you have to have to make you more grateful for all the goods ones.

Hope you all had a good long Thanksgiving weekend. I'll be around...