Thanksgiving Recap

Largely Charming

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I just had an awesome breakfast of tiny triangle shaped pancakes, with a couple of sausage patties…  and finished my cup of coffee so I think maybe just possibly I am ready to exist in the world today.  Hopefully all of my American readers had an awesome Thanksgiving, that had minimal if any awkwardness.  For the rest of my readers in other parts of the world…  I hope you had a good normal ordinary Thursday and are having an awesome Friday right now as well.  American holidays have to be really bizarre for anyone living in the rest of the country, because we get so hyped about them… and also dominate large swaths of the internet.  For me I had a really charming Thanksgiving but one that lasted quite a bit longer than normal.  Several weeks ago we technically had our first Thanksgiving with my wife’s father.  Traditionally we have a dual Thanksgiving and Christmas celebration on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, because they head down south for the winter immediately following.  For whatever reason they wanted to get an early start, so we had it several weeks ago.

Then this week we started our official festivities on Wednesday night around 7 pm.  I’ve been without grandparents for a few years now, and there was this period where most of us simply did not know what to do for the holidays without that glue to hold the family together.  That said lately there has been much effort in trying to make it work again.  When my Grandfather on my Dad’s side passed away, my Aunt ended up with the house, and she has done this amazing job of renovating it to make it feel modern and cozy again.  While Grandfather didn’t really like change much,  I feel like Grandma would have loved it and even more than that she would be tickled pink that we were still all pulling together for Christmas and Thanksgiving in their home.  The end result are these adorably charming meals that we have with my folks, my aunt and her husband, and my cousins.  It always has this feel like we are going away to a cabin or something like that, when I know it really isn’t the case at all.  I am really happy that at least a bit of normality has returned to the traditions on that side.  On my Mother’s side however things are still sorting themselves out.

The Important Meal

Then yesterday during the noon meal, we met with the family on my Wife’s mothers side.  This was a considerably larger group of people, and anytime there are large gatherings my anxiety starts going into overtime.  It was however really charming as well, and the food…  was amazing.  I am really particular about food… and generally speaking I do not like spiral sliced hams, because in my experience they tend to be on the dry side.  Whatever they did to the spiral sliced ham they had… it ended up juicy and moist and amazing.  From all accounts…  all they did was “follow the directions” so maybe that has been the problem all along?  Similarly they said they followed the directions on the Turkey and it wound up amazingly juicy as well.  I am guessing they may just have some magic touch because seriously… everything we ate yesterday was phenomenal.  One thing I do find funny is how recipes that started out on the back of packages… have become Thanksgiving staples.  The meal isn’t complete without Green Bean Casserole for example… and we had the cheesy sour cream potato bake thing too that also started on the back of some product package.  It makes me wonder how many of these dishes have been marketed to us as simply a way to sell their product in an otherwise slow period of the year.

Another big discussion from yesterday was the whole stores opening on Thanksgiving day bit.  One of the questions my wife and I had was that most of the stores didn’t open until that evening.  There has been a lot of gnashing of teeth on social media about this practice of opening on Thanksgiving day hurting families.  However what we wondered was… is it regional which meal of the day is important?  Growing up the only important meal on Thanksgiving is the noon meal, and dinner generally speaking is “fend for yourself” from leftovers.  This was the way in both sides of my family, and the same for all sides of my wife’s split family.  So obviously in our region the important meal is Lunch, which makes me wonder… are there some regions where the important meal is the evening meal?  The other side line discussion was how everyone seems to be concerned about big box stores opening on Thanksgiving…  but no one was ever really been concerned about the Walgreens of the world, the Restaurants and the Convenience stores.  Those have always been open on Thanksgiving, and none of those folks have ever gotten to spend the holidays with their family.  Similarly my nephew has to bail early as he is a Police officer and was just about to work a shift.

Limited Awkwardness

The thing I am most thankful of this year is the fact that I did not have to suffer through any cringe worthy borderline racist or sexist conversations!  Everyone was happy and healthy and seemingly stable… and we had a nice meal with some nice conversation all around.  There were absolutely zero occurrences of verbal sparring about this sports team or this product being better than another one.  We simply had a nice meal, and got lots of hugs from people we don’t see as often as we would like.  Once again there wre promises to get together more often, and I really hope we can follow through with them.  On the earliest thanksgiving we did make plans to meet up for dinner once a month on the first Friday of the month.  I think maybe we are going to make that one happen this year,  because we have a timeline to follow.  The others… I hope we can sort something out because it is sad that most of the family lives within an hour of each other, but we only ever see them at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  All in all it was a pretty great year, and I am hoping that each of you had a similarly great Thanksgiving.  My thoughts go out to the folks who are working retail today, and I am hoping you all stay safe and sane..  are getting hazard pay… and didn’t forget to pack your riot gear.

Positivity, Cynicism and Thankfulness

On Thankfulness

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One of the problems with depression is that your brain lies to you.  It tells you that things are going horribly, that no one likes you… and that ultimately you are a failure in everything you do.  It is because of these lies that I find it extremely important to give myself a reality check every now and then, and really appreciate how lucky and blessed I really am.  The Thanksgiving holiday has become my favorite over the years, and the reasoning behind that… is pretty simple.  It cuts through all the pretense, and is just a holiday about sharing a meal and some conversation with your family.  Granted my particular view of Thanksgiving may be dictated by the fact that we never host… but for us at least it is showing up someplace with a few dishes of food in hand… and then sitting down to have a lovely meal with folks that you don’t see as often as you might like.  There are lots of times I wish we could convince our family to treat Christmas as Thanksgiving 2.0… because for me at least it is the getting together part that is the important bits… not necessarily the often times awkward gift exchange.

Thanksgiving is also a great time to sit down and review the past year.  I could look at this year as nothing special, but in reality I was surrounded by my support network of friends and managed to continue releasing daily blog posts and weekly podcasts without missing a beat.  That seems like a pretty great thing to be thankful for.  More importantly I am thankful for my friends.  There are so many of you that I talk to on a daily basis, and you are always there to offer a word of support or sometimes a much needed bringing down to earth.  I am also extremely thankful for my amazing wife…  who helps to center me… and keep me from going off the deep end sometimes.  I’m also thankful for my very excellent work family, because they too make the daily grind thing much easier.  I’ve been lucky to be under the same boss now for four or five years of my going on eight years at my current job… and I have to say he makes it enjoyable.  I am also thankful to this blog and its readers, because whether or not you realize it…  this daily writing routine and the interactions I have with you all about said writing is therapeutic.  There is something about reconciling my thoughts and putting it onto paper, that helps organize my cluttered mind, and I thank you all for joining in the journey with me.

On Positivity

I’ve always thought that Thanksgiving made a much better day for reflection and resolutions than New Years.  For me at least it has taken on this meaning of looking back at the things you did well, the things you didn’t do quite so well… and the things you would want to change.  I am not exactly sure when I set down the path I am currently on, but it has at least been a year now since I started purposefully trying to cut as much negativity as I could from my life.  I was tired of feeling bitter and frustrated with the world, and I set down a path of “fake it until you make it”.  As goofy as that phrase sounds… it really does work because as time has gone on… I’ve myself become a much more positive person in my interactions with people… and in return my outlook on the world.  I am a happier person today than I was a few years ago, and my hope is that I will be a happier person still in the coming year.  It isn’t like I have some gauge to measure happiness by, but I know at least that I have less days where I am struggling to drag myself out of bed and confront the day.

I will likely always have the darkness of depression hanging over me, but I am getting better at simply not listening to the little voice in my head that is constantly replaying all of the things that are wrong with me.  I doubt I will ever shut that off, but I’ve started to develop better coping mechanisms for blocking it out.  I want to be someone that makes the lives of those around me better, not someone who brings others down.  So even if that is just a brief message somewhere in the social media sphere, I want to leave a positive effect on those I interact with.  I am never going to be a full on Pollyanna, because I am just too jaded for that to ever work… but I do want to be someone who is actively making things better rather than consistently making them worse.  While what I do is not really important in the grand scheme of things, it is my hope that at least it is a legacy of good…  not one of suffering.

On Cynicism

By all accounts I was an almost painfully happy child, and based on all of the photos I have seen…  I am willing to accept that at face value.  Something happened along the way however to turn me into a fairly bitter, jaded and cynical person.  I am good at what I do, because I plan for failure…  because I don’t just accept it as a possibility… I expect it to happen.  So being an eternal pessimist has been great for a career in software development… but pretty horrible for my outlook on the world.  While I am not a doomsday prepper by any means, my mind just naturally works along the lines of preparing for the worst possible thing to happen in every single interaction.  I can tell you the constant battling of my brain is tiresome when you take this instinct and mix it with the depression.  My brain can make some pretty insane leaps, as failure to shake someones hand…  ends up leading to me being out cold and hungry on the streets.  There is a whole irrational segment of my mind that is constantly churning out doomsday scenarios out of average every day occurrences.  Maybe I simply took my Eagle Scout training a little to seriously, with the whole “Be Prepared” motto.

Now all of these instincts that I am talking about are pretty deep rooted, but it doesn’t mean I think they are good things.  It is my hope over the next year to work towards being less cynical.  I write about video games, not industrial accidents.  I should have more child like joy about the things I am doing, rather talking about how this or that is a portent of a big coming failure.  I am tired of seeing the bad in my hobby, and I am tired of feeling like everything is going to shit… and quickly.  I mean the world around us does a pretty good job of eternally bumming me out on a regular basis, I really don’t need my hobby to do it as well.  So along with the methodology of faking it until I make it… I am going to try applying that positivity more thoroughly and hopefully root out some of my cynicism towards everything.  I want the coming year to be an awesome one, and I want to spend more time enjoying the awesome things around me… rather than worrying about the things that aren’t.  I can’t say that I think it will be easy, but I think it will be good in the long run for my own mental health and happiness.

In closing… I hope each of you has your own personal day of reflection upon all the ways you are lucky in your life, and all of the things you would strive to change.  I hope you enjoy your time with family and friends, and enjoy the ritual of sharing a good meal.  Thanksgiving is this day that has a special meaning for me, and it is my hope that it develops a special meaning for each of you.  May you have a very Happy Thanksgiving, and even if you are not celebrating it…  may your day be excellent as well.