At quarter to five the oven was warming, the salad was made, and the candles were lit; all were warming the house from the snowstorm brewing outside. Headlights flash in the windows and knocks were heard at the door. It was the beginning of Thanksgiving break, which couldn’t officially start until my family arrived home. After a bone-crushing hug from my towering older brother and a quick squeeze from my chibi older sister, we began dinner that Wednesday night. Crowding around the dinner table for massive portions of homemade Gouda macaroni and cheese, pork tenderloin smothered in Jack Daniels sauce, and a crisp salad, we caught up. After cleaning up and a blister-inducing game of Super Smash Bros. 64 and Pokemon stadium, my mother arrived home and we all settled down for a movie surrounded by the comfort that is only brought on by a tight-knit family.
While many people spend their Thanksgiving in a torrential blur of travel, cooking, and playing nice with their distant relatives, my family has a time-honored tradition of staying in our pajamas, playing video games, cooking together, and watching movies. Year after year, it still hasn’t gotten the least bit stale. This year we watched The Boondock Saints, a movie that, to all of our shock, even my mother enjoyed. Let’s just say Norman Reedus’s Irish accent is everyone’s favorite genre of movie. Last year we watched all of the Breaking Bad series; the best part was watching our mom’s face in some of the gorier scenes. Another Thanksgiving favorite had been trying to get her into Game of Thrones, yet there was just too much decapitation and looting for her to enjoy it as much as her children. This year we took particular joy in celebrating my brother’s recent induction as a doctor of chiropractic and the University of Lombard in Chicago. He may be a doctor now, but he still had to make the cranberry sauce. After dinner we sat around for a bit as my brother and my boyfriend jammed out together acoustically and read my sister’s newest published comic anthology while the pumpkin pie finished baking. All in all, it was a beautiful weekend.