Thanksgiving: My Favorite Holiday

I cannot wait for Thanksgiving this year since I am pseudo-hosting my first Thanksgiving at our house for my family.  I say pseudo- because we will be having Thanksgiving dinner @ Eric's grandmother's house, but my parents, and my brother and his gf are coming to our house for Thanksgiving weekend.  However, I have already arranged for us to have an extra fried turkey that will stay at our house so that I can ensure we get to have leftover turkey sandwiches =).

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I can smell it already!

Thanksgiving is probably my absolute favorite holiday around.  Don't get me wrong, Christmas is up there, too, but there is something about Thanksgiving that has always mad it #1 in my book.  

I have such fond memories of Thanksgivings growing up and even now.   I think it comes from having a family that is so spread out all over the country.  Seriously, no one in my family lives in the same state.  All of my parents' siblings and their families live in different state.  For both sides of my family, Thanksgiving has always been that one time of year we travel to one grandparents' house or the other to spend time with family.

 I always enjoyed the times we spent with family during Thanksgiving, but it was not until I was in college playing basketball that it hit me how wonderful these times were.  The reason it hit me so hard was because Thanksgiving always fell right after the start of our basketball season, which meant we only got a couple of days off, usually 2 days.  My freshman year, we were actually on a bus traveling to an away game on Thanksgiving Day.  I spent my sophomore Thanksgiving with a teammate's family.  I was very fortunate my junior and senior years to spend Thanksgiving with my now-husband's family.

The year after I graduated and was done playing basketball I told Eric (he was still my boyfriend @ the time), that I was spending Thanksgiving in Indiana with my family, end of story.  I missed that experience so much, and it was absolutely wonderful to be able to have Thanksgiving with them again.  Plus it was Eric's first time to experience a northern Thanksgiving (eating stuffing, not dressing, among other things).

The other reason that Thanksgiving is so special to me is because Eric proposed to me Thanksgiving 2009 after Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparents' house while my entire family was sitting around the table. It was the most amazing perfect proposal ever!