Season 5 Thanksgiving Special: Lost In Tradition

 Season 5 Thanksgiving Special: Lost In Tradition

OCALICONLINE accidentally worked out perfectly for me schedule-wise because the conference happened a week before Thanksgiving, and I only had to work Monday and Tuesday the week of the holiday. This meant that when I drove up to New Story the day before the conference, I only had three school days before break.

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, at 7:30 p.m., I picked Noah up at his house and we went to dinner at Applebee's (or “A-pplib-ees” as Noah calls it). While we were there, they started playing Christmas music. Usually, I'm very anti-Christmas music before Thanksgiving, but last year my phone stopped working shortly before Christmas, and I didn't get to listen to my Christmas playlist as much as I'd wanted, so I was here for the early music.

After I dropped Noah off at home, I went to my parents' house, but before I went inside I realized that everyone was at my childhood neighbor’s house. I ran in and saw, Megan and Rachel, their parents Stephen and Robin, our friends Tim and Kristin, and Ryan who was back from Chicago. After hanging out for a little bit, my brothers and I drove to the airport and picked up, our grandpa, Pop-pop, and our aunt and uncle, Eva and Zach.

The next day, we went out to lunch at a place downtown called The North Market, and that night I showed Pop-pop, Eva, Zach, and Dad the recording of my OCALICONLINE session (which I only have access to for a short amount of time). On Thanksgiving Day at 1:30, people started showing up. First Mom’s parents/step-parents (Nimba, Papa, Grandpa, and Nana) got here. Then my cousins’ family, the Mitreys (Aunt Melissa, Uncle Andy, Alex/his girlfriend Emma, Maci, Nicholas, and Ellie) arrived, followed very closely by, Aunt Cyndi, her fiance, Jeremy and her kids Kaitlyn and Cameron, and eventually my cousin Austin.

After my family dinner, I went over to my “sister’s” parents' house to see, August, Arden, Kid, Marshall, Barbara, Rich, and a Priest friend that they had over. To my surprise, they were also homing a puppy named Jr. who was in training to be a seeing-eye dog over the holiday. After I hung out with them for about an hour, I returned to my parents’ house and we started playing a game called Catch Phrase (if you don't know what that is look it up and buy it it's amazing!)

Finally, on Friday night, Megan, Rachel, Stephen, and Robin, came over to make cookies, and visit with Pop-pop, Eva, Zach, and Austin, and my parents' best friends from college, Ron and Anita came too!

I'm not gonna lie, I struggled to write this installment… but I think I know why. I think the most Thanksgiving-y Thanksgiving I've experienced since I was a little kid, was Thanksgiving 2020 because Austin came and made my family actually laugh for the first time since the pandemic hit. What I’m saying is usually I'm very good at living in the moment, but on Thanksgiving and other Holidays, I tend to get lost in family traditions… I don't want to speak for everyone, but until someone fights me on it I'm going to say that most people would agree with me. So I'm making a resolution, for Christmas, and all future holidays to make an extra effort to live in the moment!

Hope you all had a Grattastic Thanksgiving!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri