The Tale of Two Thanksgivings

Deal and I spent Thanksgiving apart this year. Don't gasp. We live and work together everyday, so we should probably take breaks like this more often!!

What this means is you get 2 tales instead of one! We had very different Thanksgivings, and I will let you be the judge of which was better (not that it's a competition, but note that mine included more family time than concert time).

Let me preface by saying we spent Thanksgiving apart for a reason. My mom was coming to spend the holiday at BD, but my dad can't travel that far. So Deal volunteered to essentially switch places with my mom and keep my homebound father company. Save your "awwwwws" for later because there may have been an ulterior motive in that ...

So, my mom arrived Tuesday. Knowing she would be here for 6 days, I had my to-do list for her. Before you judge, know that this was necessary. Anyone who knows my mom knows her favorite things to say are, "Is there anything I can do for you? Can I help you with something?" In an effort to decrease the number of times she asked me that while I was busy working, I had several BD projects for her.

1) Wash 30+ blankets
2) Fold 250 maps
3) Number and fold 200 parking envelopes

She accomplished all of them, logging 20 volunteer hours.

I promise it was not all work and no play. I showed her all the typical hot spots--Harper's Ferry and the ATC Headquarters, our infamous overlook, Purcellville--plus we did Christmas shopping on Black Friday (during normal daylight hours), Christmas decorating and she got to meet all our friends. We first went over to Hopeful/Marie & Redwing's/Scott's (previous caretakers of BD) house for Thanksgiving meal #1, then to Fire Marshall's family's house for meal #2. We were stuffed like turkeys. Ha!! But really, more important than the meal was the fellowship. As usual, we have good, good people in our lives that provide us with our "families away from home" and she was happy to finally meet the faces behind the names.


 As for the Christmas decorating, this is my mom's forte. Her 1,000-square-foot house is decorated from ceiling to floor for every holiday (she even has a few decorations for President's Day). As much as we swore we wouldn't be that way, my sister and I both inherited her decorating bug. But this time, I got to spread my 2 boxes of decorations across 8,000 square feet. My mom & I were in heaven. My mom kept telling me I should write down where I put things so I remember post-season! And, we finally have a 9-foot ceiling and were able to go a little crazy and get that huge tree Deal has always wanted. Dreams do come true afterall.







Deal's Thanksgiving was quite different. In New Jersey, he went to 3 concerts (I do not kid about these things), 1 live football game (J-E-T-S) with a good friend who has stellar season seats, saw all his Prep boys and instead of partaking in any debauchery, they went bowling. These boys need to calm down in their old age. Plus, my dad rewarded him for "taking care of him" by taking him out for a nice Thanksgiving meal at the diner (no big-time outing because my dad was very sick) and plenty of other take-out meals.

Please note that there are far more pictures of Deal's festivities than my own. Anytime Deal goes away on his own, I tell him I will only blog about it if he takes pictures (and not just pictures of the concerts). So, he took the camera and took many, many pictures.










Which Thanksgiving would you rather?

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