I've been lax on blogging and Twitter over the Thanksgiving holiday, but our family needed the time together. One of the negatives to being busy and having cool opportunities and experiences is that it comes with a price. We knew before moving to the NYC area that we would not likely see my husband during the week and that he'd become a weekend dad by nature of his job, the industry and the commute to/from NYC itself. (It takes 30-60 minutes for him to get to/from work each day, depending on traffic, bus and train schedules - typical for suburban life.) We just don't spend time together at all, as even over the regular two-day weekend I have a honey-do list that takes usually one of the days, plus I want some time sans kiddo to just think, and for my hubby to spend time with Li'l Boo 1:1, so that doesn't leave much time for my husband and I to chat about important decisions or plans or goals. We have most of those discussion via text during the week. I hate it, but it is what it is. So although we travel a lot, the times we travel are literally the most time my husband and I are together, and by then we're stressed and tired. So, we chose to spend this four-day Thanksgiving weekend home with just the three of us - and even with all of the amazing things we've done this year, this was the best time all year for us as a family. No crabbiness, no arguments, no guilt, no stress - we haven't had a truly relaxing and completely enjoyable time as a family since I can remember. I miss our family afar, but know that just because we have the time off from work doesn't mean that we have to take off to visit. Our families can just as well come to us. So paradigm shift in our planning, and my New Year's Resolution for next year: spend more time HOME together as a family.
So . . . what've I been doing? I kicked off the holiday by taking Li'l Boo to see Peter and the Wolf at the New Victory Theatre on 42nd St. We LOVED it!! I wanted to expose Danny to the story and music, and to more live theater in anticipation of taking him to see The Lion King next year. (I wanted to make sure he would remain attentive, interested and quiet for the show - and he did! :-) ) We then met C2CDad for dinner at one of Li'l Boo';s favorite places in midtown - Ted's Montana Grill. Li'l Boo gets such a kick out of the buffalo head on the wall and always refers to this place as the buffalo place. Then we toured the midtown department store holiday windows and lights (like Rockefeller Center, Barney's, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks', Lord 'n Taylor and Macy's; see my piece and recommendations from our tour on NYmetropolista.com)
We skipped attending the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in-person this year, and watched instead from home as we ate brunch and I knit. I'm knitting up a storm in advance of the holidays, and if I'm not on my laptop, then I'm cooking/baking, or knitting. My hands are never idle and I fear I'll develop early arthritis as my hands can't catch an idle break these days. We cooked our first whole turkey ever, (yeah, we've always traveled to distant family for Thanksgiving or ate out) and it turned out perfectly thanks to Ray from Fairway's advice! Then, because we live in Bergen County and the laws prohibit stores and malls from opening prior to 7 a.m., we went shopping on Black Friday as a family - heading to Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase my Tassimo Titanium, stopping in Best Buy for the new Carrie Underwood cd, and a portable hard drive - where Li'l Boo exhibited an uncanny ability to play the drums with the Beatles Rock Band display. (Must be all that time he spends playing Tap Tap Revenge on my iPhone.) Then we made our way to the mall and bought some holiday clothing gifts. C2CDad made out like a bandit clothing-wise. We spent the rest of Friday at home and made Hershey kiss cookies as a family and I went through my stash of to-file recipes, freeing up a whole new shelf on our bookshelf. Ahhh . . . Oh, and we took in a Chris Pine marathon movie weekend, watching Star Trek and Bottle Shock both over the weekend via Netflix. (Hmm . .. wonder how that happened?! ;-) )
Saturday we relaxed, organized some more, finished painting the stairway and hallway (phew!), and went out for Thai food so Li'l Boo could get "chicken on a stick" (chicken satay). On Sunday we finished up a lot of our work, stocked up at Costco and ate out at The Cheesecake Factory (since we were taking a vacation from our normal life, it wouldn't be complete without a trip to a vacation restaurant ;-) ) Then we put up the tree, decorated it and pulled out our Christmas and Hanukkah books, cd's and toys. For us, it was a perfect Thanksgiving weekend. . . now back to blogging and knitting. Well, who am I kidding? It's Cyber Monday - I'm shopping!
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