Family and Thanksgiving

I'm not going to lie, this Thanksgiving was hard for me. It was the first Thanksgiving that I spent without ANY of my family. My whole life, Thanksgiving meant a day with family: grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and those close friends who we all considered family. I was always, unquestionably, with family. Sometimes it was with my dad's side of the family, sometimes it was with my mom's side of the family, sometimes it was even with both, (TWO Thanksgivings, HOLLA), and sometimes it was just me and my sister when we lived in California. But no matter what, no matter where, I have always been with family. So what's different this year? I have a boyfriend. :D And I'm not complaining about having a boyfriend (because hello! he's the most amazing thing to ever happen to me) but one of the things that comes from having a significant other in your life is that you also have a second family to consider and since you would never want to be asked to give up spending all the holidays with YOUR family, you can't expect your significant other to give up the holidays with their family; so, you take turns. And since last year, being that Josh's family was all in Hawaii, we spent Thanksgiving with my family and had a grand 'ol time. So this year? I bit my lip and, as graciaously as possible, agreed to spend the holiday with his family. Again, the majority of his family was in Hawaii and since it didn't work out for us to be there :( we were invited, along with Josh's brother Noah and his friend Kaimana who lives with them, to the home of a friend from meeting (church). It was a montage of people: neighbors, friends, and fellow churchgoers who didn't have family in the area and whatnot. It wasn't family in the traditional sense, it wasn't my family with my traditions and my familiar food (where were the hot rolls and sweet potatoes drenched in brown sugar?!) but... still... it was family. And the spirit of thankfulness was even more apparent as people were thankful to have others to spend Thanksgiving with. One of the older ladies from church was there, (who frankly, isn't really all "there") and as she was leaving said, "I was hoping to go to sleep and wake up when the holidays were over. But this was nice. I'm glad I came. You too." :) And that totally made missing out on my family's Thanksgiving worth it. That, and spending a second Thanksgiving with Joshua... PLUS, the delicious arrays of pies...


Blurry camera phone picture of the dessert table, courtesy of Noah. No, I didn't take my camera. Yes, I'm a little embarrassed by this. :)