Thanksgiving Preparation

Thanksgiving is the weekend of the 11th and it is currently looking like it is going to be a good one, though quite busy as well. Not only is our guest moving out two days before the weekend, but we have lots of family dinners in the works as well. In previous years Dave and I go in opposite directions for Thanksgiving (each to our respective families), but this year we are going to try and get to both families together – should be interesting to say the least.

Dave’s Aunt Melinda is having the Mantel Family Thanksgiving at her place near Toronto on Sunday. We will probably be spending the night at his parent’s home in Peterborough and then driving to Prescott to have dinner with my parents, brother and new sister in law on Monday. It will mean lots of food and possible some good leftovers to get us through that next week too. We could move my family’s Thanksgiving up to this weekend, but that would mean we lose two weekends to this holiday instead of just one and quite frankly I have been so tired lately I need the weekends to rest up from the previous week of work and early mornings.

The Mantel Family get-togethers are very different from the Beach ones. To start with The Beach Family Thanksgiving consists of about 5 or 6 people while the Mantel consists of ... well a lot more. Mantel Family events are planned way in advance as it needs to be decided which sibling will get to host the event (or have to host it depending on your outlook) while the Beach events are rather unplanned and just semi-‘go with the flow’. Dinner is of course planned, but the day that it happens doesn’t really matter as long as there is even notice to make the meal.They have the same family togetherness feel to them and there is really no drama at either of them, so I guess it is really just the size and pre-planning of the event that makes them different.

I am looking forward to being part of Dave’s family holiday as I have been attending the family reunions for the past three years and enjoy them very much. It will be nice though to have a quiet, peaceful day with my family after it all though.