thanksgiving is for the birds

Well, there was Thanksgiving. How'd it go for you guys? Family? Feast? Fun? Fighting? (The four effs to any government mandated holiday, right?)

Ours was small and fantastic.

I rushed home on Sunday evening, somehow the busses and work end time and everything corresponded perfectly so I made it just as the food was coming out of the oven at seven-ish. That never happens. It's a Thanksgiving miracle!

Ryan had prepared a frickin' veritable vegetarian feast; tofurky, potatoes, mushroom gravy, stuffing, some kind of fancy glazed carrots, cranberries...SO GOOD! We didn't do the pumpkin pie thing because nobody likes it except for me. (huh?) And after all that cheesecake I had on my birthday I do not need an entire pumpkin pie to myself.

The kids and Ryan came up with a new tradition that I think is super cute and a really great idea: they went and fed a bunch of ducks because they decided that it's only fair that if there's so many birds being killed at this time of year, maybe some of them deserve a good dinner.

So now, every Christmas and Thanksgiving they're gonna go somewhere and feed some birds.

Fantastic.

We also did a little talk about Christobel Colon ... Chris Columbus, the master of genocide, guy who got lost and landed in the Americas and killed everyone, you know, bla bla bla. We all agreed that the reason we were celebrating and will continue to celebrate Thanksgiving is for the food and because it's a nice excuse to have a special time with our family.

At one point, Ryan was trying to explain to the youngest that people celebrate Thanksgiving for different reasons, "you know, like people have different religions", and the kid said

"Oh, yeah, I don't believe in God."

It was really strange to hear such strong words coming out of a little mouth. I love that they're given complete freedom to choose, as I think every human should have, but I guess I've just never heard a little kid say something like that before. I have barely ever heard an adult say it outright like that. There's always some hemming and hawing, and some "well I guess there could be something...nobody can know for sure..."

Ryan took it in stride and said something to the effect of "you can choose whatever you like for the rest of your life, and maybe you'll change your mind and maybe not but that's okay" and then segued back into the Thanksgiving talk.

Deep stuff, man.

Thanksgiving stuff.

To the max.