Respect the Bird! A Short Thanksgiving Day Rant.

Traditionally, there are two major holidays this time of year, Thanksgiving and Christmas (or Hanukkah for my Jewish friends). But has anyone else noticed that "Black Friday" is becoming a holiday in its own right? Each year Black Friday seems to start earlier and earlier, with stories on the news about shoppers get more and more violent. While it's not my place to judge or tell people what they should or shouldn't do, I admit I'm disappointed. We spend an entire day giving thanks for what we have, then get up at the crack of dawn to get purchase more tangible items, and "stuff".
Black Friday isn't for me, but I understand that many are on tight budgets and are able to get more bang for their buck with these door buster type sales. My beef however is that some stores are now opening at midnight Thanksgiving night. Why can't we keep Thanksgiving and Black Friday seperate? As the "chef" in my family after the big dinner I want to relax, not get the kitchen cleaned, take a quick nap then go out and battle the crowd. So this year I decided to "Respect the Bird" and pledged to not let Shopping and Black Friday sales gobble up my Thanksgiving! I know Black Friday can be a tradition for some families, but please, lets keep the two holidays separate. Friends, family, and giving thanks are one of the most important things to us not only as individuals, but also as a nation. The retailers can have their day, I would just prefer that it doesn't run into one of the best holidays we celebrate.
It's a little late, but you can check out Respect The Bird here.

On a similar rant, I love Christmas just as much as everyone else, but can we please wait until after Thanksgiving to be bombarded with carols, commercials and merchandise? Hey Christmas! Wait your turn!
End of rant! I promise :)

While this year was bit different that most, it was still a great holiday. Tyler is in Australia, but our friends Austin and Jess came over for dinner. Since it was only the three of us I made a chicken instead of a turkey, but we still want all out on the fixins'. We had all the traditional favorites, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, and biscuits.
We gathered around the dinner table and watched the "Slapsgiving" episode of How I Met Your Mother. We ate, we laughed, we had a great time.

Vanilla Pumpkin Pie!

Our Thanksgiving spread. Notice my warmer on in the background. Thanksgiving day I melted Vanilla Pumpkin Pie!

While I didn't spend Thanksgiving this year with relatives, I did spend the day with Family :)