Today our family celebrated our first Thanksgiving away from Fresno. The day started out kind of rough for me. Upon realizing that I couldn't watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which is a little bit of a tradition, I had a melt down. You might be wondering to yourself a couple of things. First, why couldn't I watch the parade? And second, why would that make me cry?
To answer the first question, we live in a town that is functioning, don't ask me how, on technology from like 15-20 years ago. The majority of the population still has dial-up internet because that is all that is available. But to answer the question, dish network here doesn't cover local channels and some of their signal strengths aren't strong enough where we live to be picked up by an antenna. Thus, I couldn't get the channel showing that darn parade.Totally lame!!!!
Now for that second question. That parade was going to be the only part of Thanksgiving that was going to be the same for me, the only part that was going to be like home. Not being able to watch it just solidified in my mind that I am very far from home and that as much as I want things to be the same, they never again will be. Change is a good thing, but it is also a very hard thing to accept sometimes. If you are reading this and thinking that I am a basket case because that is still not a good reason to cry, you also need to remember that I am just about eight months pregnant.
We spent the majority of the day just relaxing. We watched some football and walked to the park and played for a while before we went to dinner. I was supposed to make our feast and have some lonely airmen over to join us, but before we knew it there were too many people involved and so we decided going out was our best option, especially considering I have never cooked a Thanksgiving dinner before. Our group had dinner at The Cracker Barrel. I had never been there before but it ended being the perfect place for going out to Thanksgiving dinner. The food was good and the company was enjoyable. What more could you ask for? I couldn't see how it would happen at the beginning of the day, but it ended up being a very enjoyable holiday, and I think for the first time I really realized that I have had and that I do have a lot be grateful for.
This year we decided it made the most sense for us to buy a small fake tree as opposed to the beautiful, big, real tree I wanted. After forking over a fortune for plane tickets to California for the holiday and knowing that we wouldn't even be able to enjoy the tree for those eleven days we are out of town, we settled on this four foot tall, Charlie Brown type tree. After decorations and some love I think it was ten dollars well spent. Also, thank goodness for shatterproof ornaments, Jane likes to try to manhandle the tree.
