Thanksgiving, etc.
Nov. 25th, 2016 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingMy family (by which I mean my parents, my sister, and one of my aunts) descended upon Ithaca on Tuesday evening, which was coincidentally also my Aunt Cara's birthday. We had reservations at Madeline's, a local restaurant, for 7:30 -- I walked down the hill after work and met the others there. Later we had cake and presents at my apartment.
On Wednesday I worked from 9am-4pm at the rental office. The day was slow, but I received all the usual package deliveries, checked a few packages out to students who hadn't left for Thanksgiving break, answered a few phone calls, processed a rent payment, and made some progress on a computer project Miss Cactus and I have been tackling off and on for a couple weeks. Meanwhile the others went out to do winery tours on Cayuga and Seneca lakes, though Vicky bailed after the first three in favor of a nap. In the evening we had dinner at my apartment (a very tasty tomato-based shrimp soup) and then did some heavy 'visiting,' as my grandmother would have called it, after the meal.
Thursday, of course, was turkey day itself. I don't really cook, but I helped set the table and I did about half the table-clearing and all the dish-washing. I also said grace, which somehow became my designated task back in late high school. Most years that's pretty easy. This time, it was less so. But I think I managed.
We ate around 2pm and had dessert around 6pm (after we'd cleaned up, socialized (aka, collectively done several crossword puzzles because we are all hopeless dorks), napped, and taken a walk). Then we played card games, because why not? Vicky had brought a card deck that was both specifically geared for a variant on Authors ('Children's Authors') and also doubled as an ordinary playing deck. So first we did two rounds of Authors (this being made trickier because you had to ask for specific books, not just an author's name in general) and then Aunt Cara went back to the crosswords while Vicky, our parents, and I played nine hands of Hearts. We were deliberately not keeping score from one hand to the next, but we're all still pretty competitive so it got a little intense at times. It probably would have gotten even more so if we hadn't been finishing off a couple bottles of wine and also munching through the remnants of the midday hors d'oeuvres that we always set out (cheese, three to five kinds of crackers, olives, smoked salmon, pepperoni, weird jams, chips and dips, etc.) for people to snack on while the turkey cooks.
Aunt Cara left at the crack of dawn today, but the rest of us went to Friendly's for breakfast. Vicky left directly from the restaurant, while Mom, Dad, and I first went grocery shopping, bought bus tickets for my two December trips to NJ, and filled their car with gas. We also spent a while repackaging leftovers so I had some and Mom could fit the rest into her three coolers for transport to NJ.
They have all arrived safely at their respective homes by now (or rather, Vicky is in NJ at our parents' house for another couple days, which will also include a trip into the city to visit one of her oldest friends) and I think I can pronounce the holiday a success. :)
On Wednesday I worked from 9am-4pm at the rental office. The day was slow, but I received all the usual package deliveries, checked a few packages out to students who hadn't left for Thanksgiving break, answered a few phone calls, processed a rent payment, and made some progress on a computer project Miss Cactus and I have been tackling off and on for a couple weeks. Meanwhile the others went out to do winery tours on Cayuga and Seneca lakes, though Vicky bailed after the first three in favor of a nap. In the evening we had dinner at my apartment (a very tasty tomato-based shrimp soup) and then did some heavy 'visiting,' as my grandmother would have called it, after the meal.
Thursday, of course, was turkey day itself. I don't really cook, but I helped set the table and I did about half the table-clearing and all the dish-washing. I also said grace, which somehow became my designated task back in late high school. Most years that's pretty easy. This time, it was less so. But I think I managed.
We ate around 2pm and had dessert around 6pm (after we'd cleaned up, socialized (aka, collectively done several crossword puzzles because we are all hopeless dorks), napped, and taken a walk). Then we played card games, because why not? Vicky had brought a card deck that was both specifically geared for a variant on Authors ('Children's Authors') and also doubled as an ordinary playing deck. So first we did two rounds of Authors (this being made trickier because you had to ask for specific books, not just an author's name in general) and then Aunt Cara went back to the crosswords while Vicky, our parents, and I played nine hands of Hearts. We were deliberately not keeping score from one hand to the next, but we're all still pretty competitive so it got a little intense at times. It probably would have gotten even more so if we hadn't been finishing off a couple bottles of wine and also munching through the remnants of the midday hors d'oeuvres that we always set out (cheese, three to five kinds of crackers, olives, smoked salmon, pepperoni, weird jams, chips and dips, etc.) for people to snack on while the turkey cooks.
Aunt Cara left at the crack of dawn today, but the rest of us went to Friendly's for breakfast. Vicky left directly from the restaurant, while Mom, Dad, and I first went grocery shopping, bought bus tickets for my two December trips to NJ, and filled their car with gas. We also spent a while repackaging leftovers so I had some and Mom could fit the rest into her three coolers for transport to NJ.
They have all arrived safely at their respective homes by now (or rather, Vicky is in NJ at our parents' house for another couple days, which will also include a trip into the city to visit one of her oldest friends) and I think I can pronounce the holiday a success. :)
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Date: 2016-11-26 02:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-11-26 03:21 am (UTC)