Merci'

My favorite holiday of the year is Easter. I love the whole idea of resurrection coinciding with Spring and renewal and things blooming. I love all the colors of Easter, pastels all mixed together. I love Easter dresses and hats and the idea of Spring cleaning, although I never do it the way I would like. I love Easter dinner, hosting it, serving coconut cake for dessert and everything being white and pink and apple blossom green and lavender. Easter is the best. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. My Mom always would say "thanksgiving is just a meal". When Mike and I moved away, Thanksgiving was always the holiday we didn't come home for. We wanted to save our vacation time for Christmas and all of us, Mike, my parents and I, were working full time so nobody got enough vacation time at Thanksgiving to travel all the way across the country. I was always grateful to my Mom for telling me not to worry and that "Thanksgiving is just a meal". It made me feel better about not being home. So the first year we had the girls, we were in Nebraska, it was snowing and we weren't going home. I told Mike, "Thanksgiving is no big deal. It's just a meal. So this year, I'm going to make fajitas instead of going through all the trouble." Mike, ever happy to just have food prepared for him, thought it was great. The girls were seven months old so they were not aware of the lack of turkey. I made awesome fajitas. And I couldn't eat them because I was crying so hard. We were all alone, it was Thanksgiving and instead of smelling celery, onion and bay leaf, my kitchen was filled with the smell of sauteed peppers and marinated beef. It was so depressing.

It was that year, as I put all of the salsa and guacamole in tupperware and went to bed with a crying headache that I realized that I really really really LOVE Thanksgiving. I love the food, the colors, the idea of friends and family gathering around a big table, the smell of pumpkin and spices and even the football. But what I realized that I love the most is that even though I tell myself every year that it is dumb and I am absolutely NOT going to do it this year, at some point I find myself pausing and taking a moment to think about what I am thankful for. I can't help it. It just hits me. It might be while I am peeling potatoes or setting out my clothes or going to bed that night. But inevitably, the nagging thought will come into my head and I will force myself to think of all the way I'm blessed. And dang it, wouldn't you know that doing it makes me feel great inside every single time.

So I decided I'm not going to even try to fight it this year. Instead, I've just gone over to the dark place and embraced all the gratefulness that surrounds me. Everyday, Katie and Jessica ask how many days until Thanksgiving and then they list all the things they are thankful for and I do the same. We've been doing it all month long. This year, Thanksgiving is on steroids. And my heart is just gross with all the mush and gush. It would be so lame not to write down what I am thankful for given that I've been thinking about it all the time. I hate when other mommy bloggers do this, I really do. So in an effort to not gross you out too much and give you a cavity from all the sugar shock, I am going to try and write down what I am ACTUALLY thankful for rather than what I am supposed to be thankful for. Feel free to stop reading at any time. I'm sorry for all the narcissism. Please forgive me.

Amy's Thankful List 2009

• That new show Modern Family. It is so funny and I really love looking forward to laughing that hard every week.
• Diet Coke (I don't think I need to elaborate at this point)
• New Moon and werewolves
• The fact that the girls don't fall asleep at night but instead giggle, talk loudly, make forts, tickle each other, come out to tell us they need water, bring the mobile into bed with them so they can play it over and over and get into all sorts of mischief. It is a nuisance and I hate it on a daily basis but at my core I am thankful for the memories they are making both for themselves and for Mike and I. It is a magical time in our lives.
• That we live so close to family.
• Rubios Gourmet Shrimp Tacos with no habanero citrus salsa on flour tortillas.
• Jeans
• Bangs
• Mike living in our house instead of a B-hut in Afghanistan
• Sleeping in on Saturdays
• Target
• Julia Child's cookbook and Pioneer Woman's cookbook
• Hearts cut out of paper by little hands that say "I Love Mama" in crayon.
• Katie and Jessica's teachers
• Mike's patients that bring us lumpia and stuffed animals for the girls and kind notes and cards.
• Kozy Shack chocolate pudding. Seriously, have you tasted that stuff?

That's all I can come up with for now. It's all really true. As Jessica would say, it's not a tease, a joke or a lie.