Thanksgiving Traditions

 Tradition is what you make it, isn't it? Every year for the past four years we have spent Thanksgiving with Ray. To start the festivities off, he traditionally Cancels The Trip. This is done for a variety of reasons, it's too far, too cold, the weather, the time. We return volley with un-canceling, this year was faster than most. He called David early on Tuesday and I called him back before 9 am - the next time he cancelled us it was too late, we were 100 miles away. It didn't go as planned of course. My Master plan was to do a visit super early, get home, throw the dogs in the car,dump them in jail and off we go. The visit took longer than expected - of course!- when I got home I still had to finish packing, David was dawdling, the cats still needed to get settled... We FINALLY got on the way. Then halfway there David remembered he'd forgotten the dogs paperwork at home. ARRGH. The place we take them knows us and was not concerned, they said they'd just call the vets and it could be faxed over. So we finally get going and for once the weather was right, it was snowing like predicted. The roads were surprisingly good but it still held us up. Instead of the usual five and a half hours it took us over seven. We arrived almost 7 pm, tired and cold. We called Ray to let him know we got in ok and would see him in the morning, we had tiny four dollar frozen pizzas for dinner and turned in for the night. Morning wa much better - cold and sunny, snow melted. Ray looked great, he's recovered from the accident he had earlier in  the year. He's back to driving and doing his own grocery shopping, has gained back al it of the weigh he had lost. We went to the Stack for breakfast, did a little shopping, hung out at Ray's and then back to the Stack for our traditional Thanksgiving dinner. You might think that's a little weird or depressing, but it is the best night of the year. We laugh and talk of times past,the boys Setsu, Mikio, their kids, the crazy things we did. We talk of the years of Sunday brunches when everyone sat down to eat - sometimes as many as a dozen people. How that expanded into Sunday dinner too, hours of talking and laughing. The next day we went to the bookstore, drove byBest Buy -no thank you - and then for an afternoon at the art museum. We had dinner at the Arlington for a change of pace, then spent the evening at Rays. Saturday saw us off early - we had to be back by noon to spring the dogs. The ride back waa much faster, we manage it in about 5 and a half hours. So, that is our tradition - I hope everyone had a great holiday too.