Oh holidays
I love Thanksgiving. It's the most pure holiday (i.e. it's the least commercial [I just learned the difference between "e.g." and "i.e." today.]) It's so centered on family and harmony and abundance and completeness. It's one of the few all-American things I truly love.
I just came from a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. It was delicious. The turkey was sooo moist and tasty. There were garlic mashed potatoes and the awesomest sweet potatoes with pecans. There was normal stuffing and oyster stuffing and gravy and green beans and cranberry sauce and pasta salad. For dessert there was some sort of pecan pie with chocolate and bourbon in it, and pumpking pie and fudge and baklava (courtesy of moi.) Oh, it was glorious.
And when we were all done eating and were sitting around digesting our meal, someone opened the window, declaring they needed some cool, fresh air, and proceeded to hop out the third-floor window. Once I realized there was one of those flat roof things covered in rocks that seems to be so common to schools outside, I and two others followed suit. We were already on the top floor, but a ladder led a good 20 feet to the roof of our room, and up we went. From there another ladder went another six feet to some other roof, but this one wasn't flat. Up we went again, careful to avoid the edges that didn't have the short one-foot walls. And from there was another 12 foot ladder to the very tip-top of the building, right above the auditorium, the tallest point on campus. This was walled on two sides, but the side that dropped completely to the ground, avoiding the multiple roofs we ascended by, was completely without a ledge. Just a shear drop to a concrete death. But it was amazing up there... you could see almost the entire town, and definitely all of campus. Our campus is so beautiful, and we talked about that. It was just a gorgeous night on top of a gorgeous campus with a gorgeous feeling of Thanksgiving family and togetherness.
After admiring the view and ducking when DPS drove by so far down below, we climbed down all the thin metal ladders and back through the window. There proceeded an hour long conversation about many things and while it was evident not everyone was pleased with each other, there was still an amazing spirit of something. It wasn't one of those moments of epiphany or something wonderful to remember forever and there were no deep connections made between people- it was just a warm holiday moment. It made me want it to be Thanksgiving already so I could sit around with my family. While the holidays always seem to end in giant fueds and everyone hating each other (at least in the generation above me), it is still nice to have everyone together for a while. Although no one ever seems to want to stay. But perhaps that's for the better.
There's always a nice family togetherness feel during Thanksgiving. I think it's because we haven't all been together since April or May by then. But then Christmas is only a month away, and I think it's too much for us to all see each other again so soon. It rarely ends in that same familial way. One of the grandparents will go off on one of the adult grandchildren, or the aunts and uncles will go at each other. But things are usually all fixed again by the time the family birthday rolls around in the spring.
It's getting worse though, now that the cousins are all growing up and scattering (only the good ones leave.) Not everyone is at all the holidays. Some people only come home once a year, some people trade off holidays, some people wouldn't be missed.
Wow, I just meant to write about how good the food tasted. But I'll end with this: some of my family may embarrass me, some of them may be assholes, some of them may be insecure conspiracy theorests or just plain odd... but in the end I love them all (well, mostly.)
Okay, enough for now. I have to debate on whether or not to skip classes Tuesday and come home tomorrow night like everyone else. Fucking Truman, everyone else gets the whole week off.
I just came from a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. It was delicious. The turkey was sooo moist and tasty. There were garlic mashed potatoes and the awesomest sweet potatoes with pecans. There was normal stuffing and oyster stuffing and gravy and green beans and cranberry sauce and pasta salad. For dessert there was some sort of pecan pie with chocolate and bourbon in it, and pumpking pie and fudge and baklava (courtesy of moi.) Oh, it was glorious.
And when we were all done eating and were sitting around digesting our meal, someone opened the window, declaring they needed some cool, fresh air, and proceeded to hop out the third-floor window. Once I realized there was one of those flat roof things covered in rocks that seems to be so common to schools outside, I and two others followed suit. We were already on the top floor, but a ladder led a good 20 feet to the roof of our room, and up we went. From there another ladder went another six feet to some other roof, but this one wasn't flat. Up we went again, careful to avoid the edges that didn't have the short one-foot walls. And from there was another 12 foot ladder to the very tip-top of the building, right above the auditorium, the tallest point on campus. This was walled on two sides, but the side that dropped completely to the ground, avoiding the multiple roofs we ascended by, was completely without a ledge. Just a shear drop to a concrete death. But it was amazing up there... you could see almost the entire town, and definitely all of campus. Our campus is so beautiful, and we talked about that. It was just a gorgeous night on top of a gorgeous campus with a gorgeous feeling of Thanksgiving family and togetherness.
After admiring the view and ducking when DPS drove by so far down below, we climbed down all the thin metal ladders and back through the window. There proceeded an hour long conversation about many things and while it was evident not everyone was pleased with each other, there was still an amazing spirit of something. It wasn't one of those moments of epiphany or something wonderful to remember forever and there were no deep connections made between people- it was just a warm holiday moment. It made me want it to be Thanksgiving already so I could sit around with my family. While the holidays always seem to end in giant fueds and everyone hating each other (at least in the generation above me), it is still nice to have everyone together for a while. Although no one ever seems to want to stay. But perhaps that's for the better.
There's always a nice family togetherness feel during Thanksgiving. I think it's because we haven't all been together since April or May by then. But then Christmas is only a month away, and I think it's too much for us to all see each other again so soon. It rarely ends in that same familial way. One of the grandparents will go off on one of the adult grandchildren, or the aunts and uncles will go at each other. But things are usually all fixed again by the time the family birthday rolls around in the spring.
It's getting worse though, now that the cousins are all growing up and scattering (only the good ones leave.) Not everyone is at all the holidays. Some people only come home once a year, some people trade off holidays, some people wouldn't be missed.
Wow, I just meant to write about how good the food tasted. But I'll end with this: some of my family may embarrass me, some of them may be assholes, some of them may be insecure conspiracy theorests or just plain odd... but in the end I love them all (well, mostly.)
Okay, enough for now. I have to debate on whether or not to skip classes Tuesday and come home tomorrow night like everyone else. Fucking Truman, everyone else gets the whole week off.
posted by Emma at 9:37:00 PM
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