My Thanksgiving was calm and casual. I woke up early to watch the Macy’s Parade on TV (the beginning of my demise, I’m sure, considering I got only five hours of sleep) while perusing the Black Friday ads and drinking tea to settle my stomach. We headed over to my aunt and grandparents’ two-family house in North Jersey and had a relaxing afternoon of chatting, looking at old family photographs, drinking wine, and of course, eating. There were too many biscuits and the typical myriad of desserts from our favorite bakery, which meant lots of yummy leftovers to take home.
The cousins with Grandma & Grandpa on Thanksgiving.
On Friday I had plans with Lynds for a food coma recovery day, which entailed salads from Quiznos for lunch and lying around in sweats. After catching up on family drama – and boy, was there plenty – we settled in with my aunt to watch A Christmas Story. This movie was chosen specifically because my dad and aunt both love and quote it, but Lynds and I had yet to see the entire thing.
For about the past four years, we swore to watch it on Christmas Eve when it’s played for twenty-four hours on TBS, but we never got around to it. It was wonderful to finally watch it from start to finish, and we joked that we no longer had any more life goals because this was the ultimate accomplishment. I guess we just peaked at ages nineteen and twenty-three.
Saturday was Natalie and her fiancé, Kyle’s engagement party, which I arrived at much later than intended. But, the party was still a blast. I got to catch up not only with Danielle and her boyfriend, but also a few people from our college crew I hadn’t seen in a while and the couple’s hometown friends. We talked about our careers as a slideshow of college pictures played in the background, occasionally causing us to pause, laugh, and reminisce. And, most exciting of all, Danielle and I were asked to be bridesmaids! I almost cried and honestly, I haven't stopped gushing about it since. I'm going to drive my family mad.
The gaggle of "kids" - the couple, their siblings and friends - posing before the cake was cut.
During the cake-cutting, there were jokes about how this was really a baby shower (to which Kyle responded, not for ten more years), criticisms of Natalie’s cake-cutting abilities, and a short-lived icing war between Nat and her brother. We then retreated to the basement for intense games of Foosball and more chatting. I ended up talking to Nat’s brother and ultimately giving him my number (mostly because he asked in a way in which I couldn’t really say no, but also because a small part of me wanted to), so we’ll see what happens with that.
I had grand plans to figure out my life on Sunday – I was going to settle in and make meal plans and daily schedules for myself, but then I woke up and found out that the three days’ worth of sleeping and eating poorly had caught up with me. I was completely out-of-service from Sunday through Tuesday, only feeling better towards Tuesday night as I tuned in to watch the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting and the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
My love of fresh starts will most likely cause me to spend most of today making up lists, completing some easier chores, and getting on track. Seeing how much damage I did to myself this weekend by having to cater to my anxiety (especially how out of it I felt at Saturday's party) served as the final impetus to really start making changes now. 2011 is going to be my year.
