Thanksgiving will finally be upon us come Thursday. For me, the holiday will give me the chance to make a cool little trip back to the Bay Area to spend time with my family, feast on some great food, and watch a whole lot of football.
The greatest thing about Thanksgiving, or really any holiday that my family celebrates, is the tradition that comes along with it. The schedule of events is the same, year in and year-out, and that’s something that I never get sick of.
This is how my Thanksgiving is going to shake out…
The holiday will get an early start Thursday morning as my family will have to wake up around six in the morning to shower up, get dressed, and take off on the journey that is my house in Brentwood to my nana’s house in San Francisco.
Once on the road, there are a couple of pit stops that are necessary to the holiday achieving tradition status. First, we stop off at the Raley’s supermarket down the street in order to pick up the Thanksgiving feast that my mom ordered.
(Not your typical homemade thanksgiving feast, but my nana can’t make a whole meal anymore. Plus, Raley’s does it right with their sides).
After Raley’s, we’ll stop off at Chevron to fill the truck up with gas and get something to drink before we hit the highway.
On the highway, my mom will be tripping out due to the traffic, as she can’t stand car rides longer than 30 minutes. A couple of bad accidents have ruined her for life. Luckily, I know the surefire trick to get her mind off the road, just talk about football.
She loves when I get her take on the Thanksgiving NFL games. Her picks are the same every year due to the fact that the same two teams always play home games on Thanksgiving. These are her picks…
- Detroit Lions over whoever they play, because I was a Liberty Lion
- Whoever plays the Cowboys, because my family hates any sports team from the city of Dallas
After all that talking we have already driven through the Caldecott Tunnel and over the Bay Bridge into “the city”. Those are the two parts of the trip that freak my mom out the most.
We finally arrive at my nana’s house at around 8:30am. We usually spend an hour just talking in the kitchen while my mom starts getting the food prepared.
The Detroit Lions game gets going at 10am and so my dad, Mike (my brother and law), and I head for the TV. My mom, my nana, and my sister will talk some more while the food is being cooked; only this year, they’ll have another lady joining their crew, my beautiful 3-month old niece Hayley.
After the first quarter, the Lions will be losing in what will look to be a blow-out from the Tennessee Titans. That’s when my dad, Mike, and I, go outside to play football. We’ll then get interrupted after some time, as my sister will yell out the window that it’s time to come inside to eat.
Once I see the table, and everything that is there, one can’t help but to go hog wild and want a little bit of everything…
- Salad with tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, and cucumbers with an oil and vinegar dressing
- Green Bean casserole
- 3 slices of Turkey, and a big spoonful of mashed potatoes, with a lot of gravy poured on top of both
- sourdough bread stuffing with apples and onions
- 5 rolls
- Cranberry orange applesauce
- And of course, a slice of apple pie
By the time we finish the feast, I am stuffed.
Everyone then goes into the family room to see that the Detroit Lions made it a closer game than we thought, as we switch the channel to the Cowboys game to root for the Seattle Seahawks. We watch as much as we can until we are succumbed by the eating of turkey to take a nap.
That’s how my thanksgiving ends up every year!
1 comment:
This was a clever column! You incorporated your personal traditions with the sports topic. Too bad the cowboys whooped up on the niners yesterday. :( I can see why your family would root against them. And who knows, the Lions could make it a close game. They definitely crushed the Bucs yesterday in the beginning, but couldn't seal the deal thankfully.
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