Bless Our Lives With Your Love

I awoke this morning from dreams of Notre Dame de Paris... women doing ancient dances in the plaza out front, in the dark by candlelight. I do declare, with Thanksgiving over, my psyche is raring to go for Advent.

How was your Thanksgiving, my loved ones? Some of my closest friends IRL as well as the blogosphere were hosting this year. How was it, Little Mary and More Cows?

Here's how it went at my house.

I slept in until 10:00 yesterday morning. Oh, sweet sleep. I can go months without seeing the inside of my eyelids past 6:25 AM, and you know what, people? I am a night time person. I was made for the night, like Carly Simon. Sleep all day long. But that, alas, is not my lot for the most part. Except yesterday.... Mmmmmm.

Was it the fact that Larry-O was safely tucked in in his room, after arriving after 11 PM on the express bus from Big City? Nice thought, that, but he was with Petra and me for exactly 25 minutes (playing us his new Muse album) before saying, "I'm gonna go hang with P and M (high school pals who are suddenly a couple)." So... it was back to reading for me, and back to writing (NaNoWriMo) for Petra. At 2:30 AM I heard Larry' delicate (ahem) tread on the stairs.

So I woke up on Thanksgiving to my children, one additional beloved houseguest, enough sleep, and bunches of the meal already made (I'd done the cranberry-orange sauce on Tuesday night, Petra's apple pie on Wednesday night, and the other two pies were purchased from Petra for a school chorus fundraiser).

First up: craisin pancakes for the masses. (And there was much rejoicing.) Then, the stuffing (traditional) and the bird (11-3/4 pounds), the giblet gravy. Peel the potatoes (again, traditional mashed-- nothing fancy), snap the ends off the green beans, and suffer a sudden attack of guilt that there was no dessert for Larry-O. Yes, three pies, but nothing he liked. I enlisted the help of his sister, who whipped up a batch of brown sugar brownies, to be put in the oven as the bird came out. Also, mashed squash for BHG.

While the turkey roasted, we watched "Pieces of April," and once again I wept. I identify with every damned character in the movie, except perhaps the father, who is too good to be true (but in a very real way). I am simultaneously the "good daughter", the rebel and the mother who can't seem to connect in the way she knows she must. Such a purge was there.

We sat down to eat shortly after 5. And lo, there was much food, for four people, and much rejoicing also. We held hands around the table and said our traditional grace:

Lord, bless our ears with your words,
bless our bodies with your bounty,
bless our lives with your love. Amen.

After dinner all hands were on deck to clean. We got things stowed relatively quickly, and then three of the four of us dived into dessert. We watched a movie not on my short list, but a recent discovery of Larry's: "Memento," about a man with short-term memory loss who is trying to solve and avenge his wife's murder. As he makes discoveries he has the clues tattooed on his body. It is a weird and disturbing film, told in reverse chronological order so that the audience knows little more than the character does.

Thereafter it was time for BHG to depart, for Larry to retreat into his room to do some character study for "The Seagull," and for Petra and me to watch "Ugly Betty." (Yes. Appointment TV in this house. Missed the boat on "Grey's Anatomy.")

So.... dear ones, especially you who hosted. How'd it go? What'd you have? Would you do it again? And you who were not in your own homes: was it a good holiday for you? What made it meaningful-- or not? Are you thankful? Was there drama? (We had no drama.)

Love to all.