Kiddo did lots of fuse bead art with cousins over Thanksgiving. When I complained that the train in the instruction manual was out of the 19th century and that kids’ stuff never acknowledges awesome modern trains, she improvised this high speed beauty for me.

We picked up some of the Exploding Kittens-brand goofy party games for our upcoming big family Thanksgiving, and my inner board game snob is kind of offended at how actually fun they seem.

Nancy is giving me the courage to finally confess that I do not really like the sweet-potatoes-slathered-in-marshmallows dish.

Saturday morning spouse conversations: “What if I dressed up as such-and-such Eurovision act for Thanksgiving?” “I know you meant Halloween, but I like the idea of Thanksgiving better.”

Kiddo has no cousins on my side of the family, so during our Thanksgiving Zoom call, we successfully lobbied to add her to the siblings and partners gift exchange we do every Christmas.

This morning, a Michigander friend of mine texted to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving. Her husband and their roommate work at Walmart, and so I asked her whether they had to work today. It took my friend a few hours to respond, but I already knew the answer—as long as I’ve known them, they’ve both had to work on and around most major holidays. Their Thanksgiving has traditionally been on Thursday morning or Wednesday evening to make sure that they have some time to celebrate as a family before they get called in to work to get things ready for the capitalist rush that will come on Black Friday—and increasingly, on Thursday night.

Anyone who doesn’t accept that gender is socially constructed needs to explain to me why one of the cartoon turkeys on my Thanksgiving 5k shirt is wearing lipstick and a pearl necklace just so we know the race is open to women.

Spouse typically has a strict after-Thanksgiving rule for Christmas decorations, so the fact that we’re breaking them out today should tell you something about the week we had.

One of the highlights of this week’s family gathering was teaching my cousin’s kids to play the all-ages TTRPG Magical Kitties Save the Day. I didn’t make a firm commitment, but I did suggest we might be able to revisit our game sometime over Zoom.

Feeling better today, so we’re joining the family Thanksgiving gathering about 20 hours later than planned. Looks like our holiday plans will retain their general shape despite yesterday’s disruption.

Woke up feeling lousy, so now I get to spend the next few hours figuring out if it’s the sort of thing we need to update (i.e., cancel) our Thanksgiving travel plans for.

Hearing Black Friday commercials on French radio reminds me that I’m totally fine with the secularization of religious holidays and that the real problem is the commercialization of our holidays, whether always secular or originally religious.

Le « Black Friday » est déjà désespérant quand il est limité aux États-Unis. Quelle tristesse de me rendre compte combien cet évènement stupide est maintenant répandu ailleurs.

My parents are hosting (almost) everyone from my big family for Thanksgiving this year. Given growing numbers of food preferences and restrictions among us, I wonder whether we’ll have a big inclusive-but-non-traditional Thursday feast or whether dinner gets balkanized.

Humbling read today.

Weird Thanksgiving. 1st since 2008 w/o family (b/c COVID) and 1st since 2013 w/o a morning run (b/c return of chronic back issues). Still so much to be grateful for—but also conscious this year how much “being thankful” isn’t quite enough. It helps me better appreciate what I have but doesn’t change what others lack. I could stand to do better with the former, but I have much more work to do for the latter.