Thanksgiving

This year Thanksgiving brings some crazy excitement to our teeny tiny apartment. Kennan's mom, 4 brothers, a fiance, and a girlfriend are coming for Thanksgiving. This makes 9 people. In our apartment. For Thanksgiving.

The thing is, this could be extremely overwhelming. It could be this thing hanging over our heads - making sure the house is perfectly clean, having perfect food, making sure we have room for everybody to fit, worrying about the dishes, or making everyone happy. However, Kennan and I are actually having fun. Kennan is so excited to cook a turkey. He learned how to make stuffing and I learned how to make cranberry sauce. We made homemade cream of mushroom soup so we can have green bean casserole. We're making cheesecake and dinner rolls. We are having so much fun planning. Last night, as we sat with flour all over ourselves as we cut out leaf shaped sugar cookies, I realized that this Thanksgiving is a gift.

Kennan and I are getting to spend so much time together cooking, planning, cleaning, and grocery shopping. Kennan's family is coming to our house, which is a huge gift because we don't have the financial means to travel any more right now.

I am thankful for these next few days, despite how corny that sounds. I have had a fairly rocky relationship with Kennan's family for a variety of reasons for quite awhile. This summer, my mother-in-law and I began to restore our relationship. And it has been good. Kennan is beginning to relate well to his family again, to love his brothers and spend time with them - and for this I am thankful.

So, despite the mess, the potential for everything to go wrong, the concept of having 9 people in my small apartment, I am thankful because I believe it will be fun. I sometimes have a hard time with this holiday because of all it stands for in this country. But this year, I want to focus on being thankful for the gifts I do have instead of focusing on the things I don't.