Thanksgiving Traditions in T-Town

Hey folks,

Hope everybody had a nice Thanksgiving! We're in the homestretch here in DC. I can't believe it! I go home in just a few short weeks. Speaking of home however, I want to share with you my time spent at home last weekend for Thanksgiving.

I left via train on Wednesday afternoon. I had never experienced holiday travel before, and while it wasn't awful, I was stressed to the max. This is pretty rare for me since I love to travel. I'm a big believer in the whole "half the fun is getting there" mantra. Once onboard, I reclined my chair, whipped out my iPod, and read my Washington Post and before I knew it I was back in CT. It was really great to see my parents again and when I got into the car, the entire backseat was full of food and candy to nourish me after my long journey (they know me too well).

On Thanksgiving morning, we all woke up early and took part in a little tradition for our family: the Manchester Road Race. It's a 5 mile road race in my Dad's hometown of Manchester that usually gets about 14,000 particpants. I've run it five times now and I love it! It's a great atmosphere: people cheering on the side of the road, bands playing on the side of the road, and--this year--great weather!
My aunt and two of my uncles joined us this year. While I ran, they went into a pub across the street from the finish line and took advantage of their morning menu of fried dough and coffee. After I showered and peeled the UnderArmour off me, we all headed to my other aunt's for Thanksgiving dinner. It was great to see everybody again. I hadn't seen most of them in quite a few months. Since I ran quite well earlier in the day, I decided to give myself an extra helping of apple pie!

The next day my Mom and I took part in another Thanksgiving weekend tradition: the Black Friday wake-up call. We really don't have anything to get, we just to it to see what's going on and maybe a little people watching. This year's alarm rang at 4:30am and we were out the door at 4:45. Our first stop was JCPenney to grab our free snowglobes, as we do every year. We then headed to Walmart and Target. Walmart was an absolute madhouse. They had gates--like those you'd see used to keep cattle contained--used to form lines outside the store. Once inside, it was practically chaos. People were lugging TVs out like they going out of style. I also counted 5 police officers on duty, as well as private security. It was ridiculous.

We returned home at 6:15am and after some more sleep, I met up with Deanna, an old friend from high school. We usually meet up at a restaurant called Fuji (it's the kind where they make the food in front of you) and this time was no different. We hadn't seen each other since the spring and it was great to catch up. We also compared stories from our early morning shopping excursions.

That night, my Mom and I started our Christmas baking. Our family hosts Christmas Eve and there has many traditions that come with it. We have a traditional Slovak supper and everything is made from scratch. My grandma passed the recipes down to my mom and she is passing them down to me. I've gotten to be a pretty good baker in the last few years have taken some dishes on myself. But more on this in another post...

On Saturday, a few of my cousins came down. My cousin Dave and his wife had a kid about a year ago: Jack. My cousin Steph and her husband also had a son in August: Chase. It was great to see them again.

Jack is growing like a weed, I remember when he was only a few days old. Jack is crawling all over the place and I volunteered to watch him while Mom and Dad took a break. He kept me moving throughout because he loves opening doors. He bounced from room to room opening and closing doors, then playing with the little door-stop connected to the wall.

That night, I met up with some old high school friends and got home relatively early because we had to decorate the Christmas tree our family had picked out earlier in the day. We had incredible luck this year. Where it would normally take a whole day (and a whole lot of arguing) to pick out a tree...this year it took us one stop and about 20 minutes!

But we got ours in the end: apparently a tree is supposed to be able to "stand up on it's own"?! Pshh, who knew! After it fell for the 3rd time, we thought we were doomed but it is still (fingers crossed) standing as I write.

Before I knew it, the weekend was over and I was on a train back to DC Sunday afternoon. I knew it wouldn't be too long before I was back home for good. But until then, I'm ready to make these last few weeks in Washington an absolute blast!

Take care!