The Joy of Family

THE JOY OF FAMILY, TOGETHERNESS, MARTHA STEWART, AND GLUE GUNS........

Thanksgiving. Was it really a week ago?
The time does really fly this time of year...

I love Thanksgiving. I mean LOVE IT. I won't look to you and say "Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because everyone takes a moment to pause and be grateful (though we do) and I don't like Christmas cause it's commercialized and my birthday because it's centered around presents" HA I LOVE PRESENTS! I love Thanksgiving not just for the food, not just for the pausing and being grateful, not just for the football, but because Thanksgiving with are family is akin to a frickin' three-ringed circus.

It's partly my fault. Who looks at the Martha Stewart website at the Thanksgiving centerpieces and thinks "homemade pom-pom turkey placecards. Another brilliant idea, Martha....Jail really did a wonder for your creative flair...I am going to strive to emulate you this holiday season." WHO THINKS THAT? Oh shit, I DO. I am crazy when it comes to the holidays and craftiness. I think that came at a young age. My mother is extremely crafty and was a children's librarian for years and was the master of kid crafts. She always encouraged our craftiness when my sister and I were little. We were also sent to my aunt's church every Sunday after Thanksgiving for a number of years to make Christmas crafts. While I never quite graduated to the pine bough and holly floral arrangement and cut-out-of-white-paper nativity scenes (we still have the paper nativity!) I certainly had a grand old time coloring in woodblock shapes with fat vibrant crayola markers and affixing an iridescent rainbow angel or baby jesus sticker in the center. Or making little bells out of communion cups (probably some sort of mortal sin), or decorating a metallic glass ball by writing my name on it in glue and dousing (and I mean dousing) the thing with glitter. There was even one year where I made my own snowglobe, but since I was afraid of superglue, I used it too sparingly on the jar lid that served at the base of the snowglobe, so I was left with a leaky glitter-filled mess my mother had to clean out of the car, henceforth leading to a ban on the snow-globe making table. Anyways, my point is that we've always been a crafty family. My father is crafty in that Martha Stewart way, more in a "let me use fire and welding tools to make a wrought iron stand for the bird feeder" type way, which is pretty damn convenient, let me tell you.

So I decide to make the turkeys. I email them to my sister and she is all "alskdjlfaeuiroawhlasdhf asldkfja ldkjaosdlfhawoihaw erh WANT TO MAKE TURKEYS" excited and stuff. So I go on a mission. I go to the local AC Moore. AC Moore is my new obsession. If I was ever under house arrest, I would probably request that AC Moore be listed as "my house" and the conditions of my house arrest would be 1. never to leave the confines of AC Moore for the length of sentence and 2. be allowed to bring lifetime supply of pictures to AC Moore. There I would live on Dunkin Donuts (which is right across the mall) and I would scrapbook. I would pitch a tent right out front in the "seasonal" corner of the store and be as happy as camera whore in a film store....Right, on track, I go to AC Moore to buy the things Martha says I need for my turkeys: red, orange, white, black, gold and brown felt. It's on sale for 20 cents a piece, so I buy four of each color. Check. Black pipe cleaners. No prob, check. Red, black, brown, white, grey and gold wool yarn. No prob, I think. I go to the yarn section to the pure wool yarns. $5.99 a PIECE HELLS NO! I probably said it out loud too. I think "F this, I'll get a wool blend." NO wool blends to be had. I scrap the yarn and go to seek out the pom pom maker. AC Moore carries two brands. BOTH sold out. I think "some hyper crafty B*TCHES with too much time on their hands have the same idea and are MAKING THESE TURKEYS and have bought all the pom pom makers." THen I realize that I basically fit above description, ahahhaha oh well.. I decide to pay up and go to Wal-Mart, because Wal-Mart probably has cheap yarn, cheap pom pom makers and the type of clientele that goes there are not shopping for craft items. No luck. I go to Michael's. Nothing. DAMMIT!

Now this was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and I had really wanted to get a head start on things since I was making home made pom poms and my sister wouldn't be there to help until Wednesday, since we all knew that her flight would be delayed Tuesday coming out of DC (and it was, by about 4 hours or so) but instead I sat around, knitted (or maybe just plain sat on my ass I don't remember) and watched TV. My sister got in at about 12:30am and I went to bed, no part of the turkeys done yet.

Wednesday was a work day. When my sister picked me up at the train, we went on a mission. Joann's fabrics had a yarn sale, so we got three colors of wool acrylic blend yard for 2 bucks and a pom pom maker (yessssssssss). I figured we could start making everything when we got back from our Thanksgiving revelries at Friday's. Ha. Two huge margaritas and my sister was out of commision as far as crafts were concerned. She copied the templates while I made pom poms, and then had to eventually go to bed...

9AM Thursday. I wake up and flip on the Macy's parade (CBS coverage, unfortunately because my NBC doesn't come in too well) and go to work. It's like a sweatshop in my room (ok not that bad, and it was cold, so I wasn't sweating) and there were bits of yarn everywhere. My sister came in to cut out felt, but later bailed.....I will forgive her though, cause she went and got me a medium caramel swirl iced latte with whipped cream on it :) Anyways, I had stayed up on the phone til 2am making turkey bodies (multi-colored I may add, no easy feat!) and talking to boyfriend, who was cooking for Thanksgiving. By the time I got up on Thursday I had the bodies done at lease, and made a bunch of heads. I cut out the remaining felt, revved up the glue gun and got to work. I was a turkey-making machine. I glued felt and pom poms and pipe cleaners together and produced something quite unlike Martha's rendition of the pom pom turkey, but I was satisfied. I even made an emergency turkey in case a wayward wandering cousin showed up at my Grandmother's.

By the time we all managed to sit down, the table was quite lovely. My grandmother sets a good table, and had candles and beautiful centerpieces and everything. I took pictures too. And though being with my family can be a three-ringed circus (my great auntie spoke loudly through grace, cause she can't hear too well....my grandmother's hearing aid amplified my father's voice to the point of madness....the men fell asleep on the couch watching football....the cousins and women tried their hand a trivial pursuit....I almost fell asleep sitting up....etc etc) it was all in all FUN TIMES with the family, and FUN TIMES with the turkeys.....and the food....I can't even talk about it, I might have an orgasm if I do, and that would be inappropriate, cause I'm sitting at my desk, at work ;)