Happy Thanksgiving. If you celebrate, may your day be filled with laughter and good times. If you don’t celebrate, may your day still be filled with laughter and good times. Like I said the other day. I’m on the fence with the whole Thanksgiving thing. Traditionally I like it because everyone gets together. But I also don’t love it because I am a vegetarian and my family puts bacon on everything. This year may be different since my sister is cooking and her daughter has joined me on the meatless side so there may not be bacon sprinkled in and on every single thing that used to be a vegetable. Either way, today is the day the madness begins.
I do love the Thanksgiving Day Parade. I’ve always loved it. My favorite part is still the floats after all these years. And the Rockettes. I’ve always been in love with the Rockettes. When I was little that’s all I ever wanted to be. They were so beautiful with their hair all slicked back in a bun and that delicious red lipstick. And the legs that just went on for miles and miles. I wanted to be one so bad. It didn’t dawn on me until years later that those girls probably started out in a ballet class somewhere. I never took ballet. We were too poor and ballet is expensive. But Oh, how I dreamed every Thanksgiving day.
Now I just dream about getting home without being stuck in black Thursday traffic. Because as we all know, stores re-open at 6pm to let you take advantage of the “once in a lifetime” sale that you are getting, even though you have to wrestle with people to get the last whatever you were looking for, fight through the literal herd of people all headed to the electronics section and then there are the God-awful lines you have to wait in just to check out with the one girl who hates the holidays so much because she doesn’t get to enjoy time at home with her kids because she wasn’t thinking about Thanksgiving through Christmas when she took the retail job she usually loves. No. Thank. You.
I don’t shop on Thanksgiving. Or Black Friday. I actually try to wait until the Saturday after and shop small and local. I’m a fan of local shopping. I’m a fan of small business. I am excited that they are lighting the tree downtown tomorrow. I love that night. There is the main tree lighting downtown and then there is another one a week or so later right around the corner from me at the park. I don’t know why I love those events so much, but I do. I haven’t missed a tree lighting in years. Sometimes I even go alone. My youngest son is 16 so he pretty much gives zero fucks about the huge tree and the hot chocolate right about now. But I still love it. I think he will grow back into it one day like he grew back into not hating me from his pre-teen years til now. Only time will tell, but I will continue my tradition of walking around downtown and watching all the people get into the holiday spirit.
I still can’t believe how quickly this year flew by. It seems like just the other day I was refusing to make a resolutions list. And thank goodness I did. I haven’t gotten shit accomplished that would have been on that list. That’s mostly why I don’t make one. Because when Thanksgiving rolls around and I realilze how many things I would have unrealistically put on that list, I would have just been setting myself up for failure. That’s pretty much why I don’t do resolutions at new years. I do them periodically throughout the year. I can usually reach those goals. And if I don’t reach them, I rarely beat myself up over them.
I resolved a long time ago to embrace my humanity and accept the fact that I am only human and I will and do fuck up (frequently). And it’s OK.
Anyway, I hope you all have a Happy day. I hope you don’t get stuck in the line with the slowest cashier in the world if you decide to go shopping today or tomorrow. And I hope all your food isn’t sprinkled with bacon if you are a vegetarian.
RouletteWeekend 