Thankful For a Good Thanksgiving

I feel as if I should put a thankful post up here because I am doing it on another form of social media here this month and put one on my personal Facebook page, so I will because I am honestly thankful for all that Suburbia from a non-Suburbia upbringing has given me.

Number one, the most mentionable, yet the thing that needs not even be mentioned per the obvious, is the kiddo. Honestly, the past three years have been great and challenging and (as I was reminded at least 3 times during the hunger games yesterday)the most tiring three years of my entire life, however, during that time the kiddo and I really built our bond and made our family our own. It's not the old - oh my child is my child yada yada yada type bond - but the we are in this together, we both know each other in and out, and we are thankfully stuck together type of bond.

Number two is how yesterday felt - at the end of the day my immediate family's Thanksgiving/Festivus felt like the end to the best Christmas ever. My brother whom I don't get to see very often at all (like years) came into town with his new gal and his daughter, my sister was there with all of her brood, I was there with the kiddo all at my parents' house (smack dab in Suburbia I must say). It was also the first time my parents had all of their grandchildren under one roof, let alone in the same state - making it pretty special for both my parents and the cousins.

It wasn't perfection by any standards and to use the word awkward and wine would be putting it gently...*Spoiler for tomorrows post, it will be GOOD*...but we gathered all together, took both obligatory pictures and random ones, ate, talked, sang happy birthday, had desserts galore, settled the children in, and at the end of the evening my folks, my bro, and I ate again while watching the movie Mixed Nuts - greatly appropriate.

Most of all on the drive home (make that to work this morning at O'dark thirty) I felt like I was driving home from Christmas day, because honestly with my family - this is all I wanted for the holidays. The past few years for my birthday or Christmas, I truly haven't wanted any gifts of tangible items, because....well my number one has taught me so much the past three years about what really matters in life, love, and faith. So I guess that's another thing to be thankful for.