<p>Prayers for AK dad.<br>
Add us to the Dre beats list…</p>
<p>AK-hoping for a complete recovery for your dad.</p>
<p>Amanda - So sorry your dad is sick. Sending hugs to all and prayers.</p>
<p>Thinking of you AK and your father.</p>
<p>Am praying for your Dad, AK. If you all could hold a good thought for my Mom, too, who had some kind of result from her heart monitor test that made her primary tell her she needed to consult again with her heart dr. </p>
<p>We used to have huge holiday gatherings with H’s local family here in NY, but marriages failed, siblings moved away, and kids grew up. So for the past few years (the ones that D primarily remembers), it is usually D, H, my mom and me (with an occasional cousin thrown in). We established “Pyjama Christmas” in response. We do all the cooking ahead and go to church on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day we eat all the yummy made ahead food, play games, watch DVDs and read the new books each of us gets for Christmas every year. It started out as making lemons out of lemonade, but now we really like our cozy, family Christmas. We still see H’s family (mine is in Calif.) just not usually on the day.</p>
<p>Sending healing thoughts to Amanda’s dad and Kinder’s mom.</p>
<p>Kinder - so sorry to hear about your mom - always room on the list of positive thoughts and prayers! Your pj Christmas sounds lovely! I insist on casual clothes as we all must dress formally for MILs uber stuffy Christmas Eve every year. My kids are flexible and love the different traditions they get from all sides. Soon enough we will be sharing them with gf/so families.</p>
<p>Consider it done kinderny. :)</p>
<p>AK - thinking of you and your Dad
Kinder - good luck to your Mom and her heart doc…</p>
<p>kinder – sending healthy wishes for your mom</p>
<p>**15 days (or less) to Thanksgiving break **</p>
<p>Election Day Today. Don’t forget to vote!</p>
<p>(Based on kids touching down at home on the Wednesday before TG. Some kids may get the full week and will land at home sooner.)</p>
<p>Sending Get Well Soon wishes to AK’s dad and Kinder’s mom!</p>
<p>Kinder: Sending healing wishes and a prayer for your mom. Hope it’s nothing serious!</p>
<p>Prayers for AK’s dad (to recover quickly) and Kinder’s mom (hope it’s nothing serious).</p>
<p>No college news here, but I am a little envious of folks who will get to spend lots of time with their kids over Thanksgiving. D doesn’t come home until Tuesday night, will want to spend time with friends on Wednesday, and will be with her dad on T-day and much of Friday. Then, because of choir commitments for their Christmas Festival, she needs to be at the airport by 10 AM on Saturday to get back in time for Saturday evening rehearsal. Ah well, I’ll get to hug her and have dinner one night, then less than a month before winter break!</p>
<p>Adding Kinder mom to my prayer list (with AK dad)…</p>
<p>These 15 days until I see D are going to go very slowly, I can feel it already. </p>
<p>D was invited to go to Mexico for 5 days over New Year’s with a high school friend. Now I get to be the bad guy and say “No, you need to rest, spend time with family and friends here, and not spend money.” Little bro cannot wait to have her home over winter break (me too!). How could she even want to spend 5 days in sunny Mexico instead of MN in the winter!? </p>
<p>Hugs to cooker. It must be hard to share such limited time with your D over Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>Kinder, +++++ to your mom, too.</p>
<p>Best wishes to AK’s Dad and kindermom.</p>
<p>We are hosting Thanksgiving for the first time in recorded history. The US side of our family has gotten together with my aunt and uncle’s family every year for Thanksgiving and Passover. There’s some fractionation for Passover, as some in my generation spends alternate years with the their in-laws. But, Thanksgiving was either at my parent’s house or my aunt/uncle’s house. Well, both aunt and Mom would find it too much work and has switched in the last couple of years to my cousin and my sister in DC. It wouldn’t work easily for Son to head to DC with us and ShawD is flying home the Friday after Thanksgiving. So, we offered to host. This way, my mother will get to see ShawD and ShawSon. Hosting in the past was relatively unthinkable, as we are the religious black sheep of the family (fortunately, I’ve been the golden boy in other dimensions). I chose not to keep kosher as soon as I left for college and have never looked back. </p>
<p>So, we’ll be buying a kosher turkey, and figuring out what we do about plates/utensils. We only serve fish or dairy when family visits and no one makes a big fuss [any longer] as it is sort of like going to a restaurant. Otherwise, we’d have to get paper plates and plastic utensils. I hope not, but whatever works. </p>
<p>The good news: ShawWife is easily the best cook on my side of the family. But, she puts a lot of effort into it.</p>
<p>The bad news: Except for the one who can’t come, my siblings/spouses are not big at rolling up their sleeves and helping (they are so used to having my mother do everything). I’m thinking we assign some tasks (e.g., dessert, since we don’t eat it) and hire someone to wash dishes or help prepare or something to take the load off of us (read ShawWife). How do you deal with getting family to pitch in if they aren’t naturally doers?</p>
<p>Shaw, my side of the family is quite large (35-40) so everyone (aka the women) gets a dish assignment and the host makes the main course and supplies all the drinks. We also always hire someone to help prepare the tables, clear the tables and wash - though we (aka the women) help at the same time, too.</p>
<p>My family is generally ‘doers’ but the hostess assigns according to her menu (my SIL traditionally takes T’giving, MIL Christmas Eve, I do Christmas Day). We request special recipes be used sometimes and remind some family members to double or triple recipes based on the number of people coming (my mom is single and forgets how much teenage/young adult boys eat!). It all works out. I would not hesitate to go this route.</p>
<p>Do people stay over for a few days? If so, the trying task might be to continually cook/clean for folks who just sit there.</p>
<p>We have doers in our family, and also sitters. Thankfully, most of H’s family are doers. What we actually do is request people to bring dishes according to categories (veg, side, dessert, appetizers, etc) and then a week or so before the event to commit to what they are going to bring so we don’t end up with 3 apple pies. </p>
<p>I also require that anybody bringing their food must bring it already done- no additional cutting, cooking, etc (only warming allowed) as I am busy doing other things and finding knives, butter, cutting surfaces, serving plates gets confusing. (H’s family complies with this to a degree, but I keep on trying.) </p>
<p>When people are staying with us that are family, they also bring things for other meals or make food for a meal (e.s. Sissy makes breakfast the next day and Hiram grills steaks the next night). I also have been known to announce “I need help- would someone please get the chairs from downstairs, put out the appetizers and make a salad?” Then stand there until I get enough vounteers. This actually works well with H’s family but my brothers mostly sit and look. We no longer have holidays with the latter. ;)</p>