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Wednesday, November 26, 2003

keeping the panic at bay

I am in hearty denial about the sheer magnitude of the task that is before me in the next two days. Any time I allow a thought of Thanksgiving dinner, the preparation leading up to it, and the denouement of dirty dishes, cranky children, and leavetakings etc. to creep in around the edges of my mind, I feel the beginning of a wave-edge of sheer panic which prompts me to shut the door on that thought right quick before I'm enveloped by it and have a quick nervous breakdown.


I will instead focus on the positive:

• as soon as dinner's over the Christmas lights are getting turned on, assuming the weather's good and the men put them up as planned while the women work on dinner (please, PLEASE, God, no broken bones. Oh please. Thanksgiving Day was not good to us last year in this regard. T will not be playing in any football games, so that's helpful, but climbing around on the roof... just please, let this be the first Christmas since 1997 when he's uninjured and well. I'm begging here.)
  
• We'll listen to Christmas music while we clean up.
  
• We'll put the Christmas tree up on Friday.
  
• We finally bought icicle lights, now that garland lights are all the rage instead. (always a few steps behind the times, that's us).
  

hmm, noticing a theme... that was supposed to be good stuff about Thanksgiving. Must still be blocking that day out of fear of the aforementioned wave of panic.


Seriously, though, we will have a good time, I'm sure. Even though the whole family-reunion aspect of Thanksgiving is kind of lost on us because, hello, every single person who will be there is at the same church every Sunday morning, not to mention at my parents' house on an average of probably once a month for anything from a birthday party to an impromptu Sunday afternoon barbecue. And hopefully we'll be able to keep our minds on actually being thankful -- like, for instance, that nobody has any broken bones this year. (please God PLEASE).

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