Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is a big deal in our family. Growing up, I think I even looked forward to it more than Christmas! Even as my brother and I have started families of our own, most years have found most of us together for Thanksgiving. Often at my parent's house, but sometimes at one of us kids' place. Even sometimes with some or all of the dear family friends with whom we shared so many of those Thanksgivings in the 80s and 90s. Last year, that crowd that used to be 8 was all together again and had grown to a crowd of 18!

But this year is different. Through various circumstances - some planned and some not - we are not only home for Thanksgiving, but not having any of my family here. Don't worry - Susan's dad & wife, will be here and at least one friend, so we will have many to share the feast with. I do find just a little twinge of sadness at a tradition being disrupted, though, if just for a year. I don't miss the traveling insanity, but I do miss the family.

On a different note, there is one pseudo-tradition that bit the dust this year. The kids and I spent a couple minutes this morning watching the Macy's Parade. I stress that it was just a couple minutes. The parade wasn't that engaging for the kids, but worse still were the ads that ABC was playing every couple minutes. Not only were they annoyingly disruptive, but they were not at all suitable for kid viewing. They were mostly promotions for upcoming shows, but they were, without exception, too violent, scary, or risque for me to be comfortable. I understand that this is a major cross-promotion opportunity for the network, but I really felt like I had taken my kids to a "G" movie and gotten the "R" previews. Guess that's what passes for television "entertainment" these days. The channel went back over to PBS and they watched Dragon Tales for a while.