This weekend was great….very hectic, way too short and great! It started on Thursday morning with us packing our stuff into a very large enterprise van and driving up to New Jersey for my family’s thanksgiving feast. My family does thanksgiving like nobody else I know. Every year my mom’s side of the family gets together for an epic celebration. 75 family members (aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins and now third cousins!) all get together and feast! There is a list of what each family will bring (I was in charge of sternos, 2 desserts, and enough lettuce for 75 sandwiches) and a hall is rented. We have had thanksgiving in the same hall for the past 5 years or so…it’s the basement of a church in a sleepy NJ town. Folding tables line each side of the room and are filled with turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry, and everything else you can imagine you’d want for your thanksgiving dinner. Then there is the dessert table. About 50 desserts to choose from! I think I had about 4 different types of pie!
It’s such a great time…being able to see all of those people, seeing the kids grow, seeing my young cousins getting engaged, married, having children of their own. And seeing my aunts and uncles…knowing these are precious moments that we get to spend together now that I’ve moved away from NJ and now with my father moving down to South Carolina in a few short months. The fact that we all still get together for this event every year – that this has been going on since before I was born…is amazing. It’s so great that we can all get together and get along and spend this time together.
This thanksgiving was especially wonderful because my sisters had something up their sleeves that I was unaware of. Right after I finished up dessert I was sitting at a table with my Aunt chit chatting when all of a sudden my sister came up behind me waving a pink ribbon over my head yelling for everyone’s attention. It took a few minutes for me to realize what was going on – my sisters had planned a surprise baby shower for me in the middle of thanksgiving dinner! Sean didn’t know either – we were both shocked! I turned bright red, turned around and saw that they had set up two chairs, pink decorations, and there were a pile of presents sitting there. I had my back turned talking to my Aunt while they were decorating and had no clue this was happening behind us!
So over we went, and opened presents and got to ooh and aah over all the adorable little girlie things that my wonderful family gave to us. It was hard to absorb what was even going on…it was such a treat! To be able to celebrate our little girl coming into our lives with all of this family around us was amazing. It was almost like my mom was there with us…it was really special.
I know I said I wasn’t a fan of surprises…but if this is what it’s like to be surprised, well maybe I had it all wrong. My sisters did an amazing job and surprised the crap out of us…and I couldn’t be more thankful for them or that moment.
