A Thanksgiving Holiday That Couldn't Be Beat

Everything’s put away now. The dishes are all washed. The extra chairs are back in the garage. The dining room table is round again instead of oval. But for a while all was noise and chaos and motion and it was a lovely way to spend a holiday.

We’ve been empty nesters now for real ever since we dropped Oliver off at his graduate school apartment in early August, but both he and Lauren were coming home for Thanksgiving. We spent some time getting the house ready – mostly making sure their beds had clean sheets and blankets – and figuring out what everyone’s plans were.

Lauren arrived Tuesday evening without any difficulties, but Oliver had a bit of an adventure getting back. The plan was for him to take a train from where he goes to school and then switch to a bus in Chicago that would take him to Our Little Town, and that would have been simple except that the train was late enough that there was a real chance he’d miss his bus – the last one until the morning – and then I’d have to drive down to Chicago to pick him up, and while that’s just what you do in those circumstances it was something I’d hoped to avoid as driving in Chicago is never a good idea even in the best of times. Fortunately Kim thought to call the bus company and they agreed to hold the bus for five or ten minutes. Oliver made it with moments to spare, and all I had to do was pick him up at our local bus station at 2am in a howling windstorm, which was much nicer than driving to Chicago.

Wednesday morning Lauren took my car and went down to O’Hare to pick up Shai, whom she met in Vietnam this past summer. Shai flew in from South Africa, where his family is, and once Lauren had picked him up she started his American education by driving to the nearest Culvers for some MURCAN food (seriously – if you want to know what the platonic ideal of a fast-food burger is you can skip the rest and go straight to your nearest Culvers and be enlightened) and then to various and sundry other places before returning back to Our Little Town. We enjoyed meeting him and getting to know him over the holiday weekend. 

One of the newer traditions – newer to me, anyway – surrounding Thanksgiving break is that when people come back to their home towns from wherever it is they’ve been they gather with their old high school friends for Blackout Wednesday, which is essentially a pub crawl. I volunteered to be one of the designated drivers for the evening and ended up having dinner with Lauren and her friends at one of the local Mexican restaurants, one chosen specifically because they also serve yard-high towers of margaritas (and, for the DD, horchata).

Someone told the waiter that it was Shai’s birthday and he was game to play along, though at some point in the process I suspect he may have had second thoughts about that.

We then went to another place that was more of a bar, where I rediscovered just how old I am, and then I dropped them off at another place downtown and let them have at it while I went home to recover my hearing. Apparently a good time was had, and the call to take people home came around 1am. After a short visit to the local Kwik Trip (a midwest staple) for snacks I took everyone back to their respective spots and we called it a night.

I slept in the next morning because it was Thanksgiving Day and holidays are meant for that sort of thing. Lauren and Shai met up with a good chunk of the squad for the annual Turkey Trot here in Our Little Town and three cheers to Shai for having the wherewithal to do that after a long travel day and a short night. It was a cold morning, but spirits were high and Turkeys were Trotted like nobody’s business.

After which there was much napping, because that’s how that goes.

We’ve been driving up to Rory and Amy’s for Thanksgiving for the last few years for a celebration of food and family, so after a morning spent making pies, biscuits and pizzelles to share we piled into the minivan and headed on over.

It’s always a good time seeing everyone, and there was plenty of good food and good company to be had. There’s a constant swirl of people to talk with and things to eat and eventually you get to everyone and roll away full.

Friday was kind of a relaxing day after all that activity. Lauren took Shai out to explore Our Little Town while Oliver got caught up on some work he had to do and then joined me in our daily assault on WhenTaken.  For those of you who haven’t found this, it’s a once-a-day game where you get five historical photographs from anywhere in the world – some as old as the 1870s, others as recent as 2024 – and you have to guess where and when the photos were taken. For history nerds such as me and Oliver, it is just the most wonderful thing ever and it’s probably not an accident that our highest scores ever came when we were working together. We’ve been doing this for about a month now, and so far there have been two photos of places that I recognized instantly because I’d been there and that is an odd kind of thrill.

I made lasagna for dinner, and after that Lauren and Shai headed up to her apartment to beat the snow that was scheduled for Saturday.

Kim and I were supposed to go to Madison Saturday for her birthday, as there was a concert that she wanted to see as her designated gift, but as the day drew nearer the weather forecast got grimmer and in the end they postponed the concert to February and we just stayed home. I cleared off the first 8 inches (20cm) of snow at some point – those who laugh at someone clearing 8 inches of snow in the middle of a storm have never cleared 14 inches (35cm) of snow at the end of a storm – and we had a quiet evening of Bake Off, hockey, and popcorn while the world slowly disappeared under a blanket of white.

I tried to clear the last 6 inches (15cm) of snow the next day but the snowblower was not really up to the task and at any rate it died about 5% of the way into that job so Oliver and I had to resort to shovels. Somewhere I have almost this exact picture of my brother and my dad. What goes around comes around.

The last big event of the holiday weekend was later that day when we hosted Friendsgiving. This is not an event that happened when I was younger, as far as I remember, and I have to say that I really like the idea of making Thanksgiving something that is shared with friends and not just family. We had the family Thanksgiving on the day, and then on Sunday a pile of Lauren’s and Oliver’s friends came over. We all squeezed into the dining room and shared a loud and joyful meal together and it was a lovely time all around. Sometimes, if you are very lucky in this world, you will realize that the good times are happening while they are happening and then you can just let them wash over you and enjoy them.

Even Midgie relaxed and got into the spirit of things.

Sunday was also Kim’s actual birthday, so there were two different cakes and a couple of pies and we all sang happy birthday.

Afterward there were games and activities.

This was Shai’s first real experience with snow and to celebrate he decided to dive face-first into it. When you live in Wisconsin you get kind of jaded to the snow after a while, and it is always good to be reminded of just how exciting it can be when it is new.

Eventually it was time to wind down. I ended up taking Lauren, Shai, and Anita back to their apartment by Main Campus University, while Oliver turned in early so he could sleep a bit before taking the 3:30am bus back to Chicago and his train back to school – a process that went much more smoothly than his trip out.

And now we’re back to normal, or as close to that as we get, with a nice pile of memories and stories to hold onto, and that is how holidays should go.