Thanksgiving Wonder

Wonder of wonders. This 4-person Thanksgiving Day was probably the best, quietest, most serene I have spent in many a decade. This is a day that has sent me home in tears, or caused ultimatums of dire proportions, or just been too loud and too crazy, or I've felt put-upon, sweating in the kitchen alone while everyone else sits around on their fat asses.

As usual this year, the meal took all day to cook and we ate it in 15 minutes. This always seems absurd, but it is the way it is. Only this year, my brother, who is on many meds and can be horribly over the top and incredibly "inappropriate" for a 50 year old, actually acted like a pretty normal human being, during and after dinner. My Mate and I decided that we should segue immediately into a game of dominoes to head off any collapsing on the couch by guests while we played an old holiday movie. This turned out to be a grand idea. Instead of a movie we played "Light Classical" music from the Dish Network music thing and at points we were all singing opera. We taught Mom and Brother how to play Mexican Train and we played for several hours, only stopping to have pumpkin pie with huge blobs of whipped cream that Mate almost turned into butter with his gung-ho whipping. Mom sort of got the hang of the game and Brother finally started to win some torward the end. All were satisfied. Next year we'll have prizes for the winner and the Big Loser.

By the time the dominoes tournament was over it was 9 pm and time for guests to head on home. I didn't have a tension headache, the kitchen was mostly cleaned by Mate (he won many husband points) and nobody got mad. A great and wonderful success in my book!