Thanksgiving Traditions...

Today was my "friday" at work. I decided to take tomorrow off so that Thanksgiving wasn't so rushed and quick and the puppies and I could take our time as we drove to my parents' house tomorrow.

Weeks like this are nice but usually slightly frustrating because everyone's already slightly in 'holiday' mode and everything slows down. It's harder to get people to return phone calls, harder to get people to commit to meetings/interviews and harder to get people moving forward.

I can't blame them, I suppose. I mean, this is a short week for me and all day today, I had that sense of an internal 'countdown' that didn't stop ticking until the clock hit five p.m. and I was officially on vacation until Monday.

Of course, it's not going to be the most restful vacation but, really, is thanksgiving ever really restful? As the self-appointed soux chef to my mother in the kitchen, Wednesday is usually spent with me and my notebook, planning each stage of cooking Thanksgiving Dinner in a Dinner Impossible style. My mother and I plan how long things take to cook, what needs to go into the oven when and how we can keep things moving so that we don't run out of oven space. This is usually coupled with trying not to panic because people are arriving and coming to say hello by standing in the kitchen and being social. Since my parents' have a relatively small kitchen, this makes movement and smooth sailing quite impossible.

Also, there always tends to be the issue of the carving of the turkey. My dad, naturally, likes to do this. We generally let him because otherwise, he sulks a little. One time, we let my older brother do it but he ended up taking three times as long as my dad usually does because that's just the way he is. He's very meticulous and quite a perfectionist. It's the same when you ask my brother to put lights on the Christmas tree. It ends up taking him several hours to position each individual light correctly on the tree branches. It ends up looking fabulous but by the time he's done, you're just wanting him to hurry up and you've sort of stopped caring how it looks.

Anyway, when it comes to carving the turkey, we let my dad do it. He usually picks the most inconvenient time possible. He's either much later than he should be or he decides to come and claim it when my mother and I are doing a graceful dance around the kitchen, moving plates, dishes, etc. to get everything in order.

Still, in the end, it all comes together. The meal always turns out delicously. It gets eaten far quicker than it gets prepared but that's always the way, isn't it?

After thanksgiving, it's become a tradition for everyone to grab the newspaper ads and start talking about what they want for Christmas, particularly the children. This is quite handy since my sister and I are Black Friday shoppers and it gives us ideas for our shopping trip.

We're planning on being at WalMart at 4 a.m. I'm not a huge fan of Walmart in general but it's a tradition. It makes you feel like you're part of something to be there at 4 a.m. waiting for the announcement that it's time to start shopping. That you're not be something sane per se is irrelevant. It's a tradition and it's fun to see all of the other nutcases who are there for the early-morning deals. It's just best to stay away from the big screen TV's. Big Screen TV buyers are a little scary.

I don't know where else we'll end up but I know we're likely to make a day of it on Friday. Chances are by Friday night, we'll be exhausted but in the meantime, it will not only be fun to be shopping all day but also to spend time with my sister and act like a crazy person.

Of course, she'd probably say that I generally act like a crazy person year round which may or may not be true but on Black Friday, I'm not alone.

That's a Thanksgiving tradition I just love.

Happy Thanksgiving- I'll be back next week!

Thanksgiving and the Insanity of Black Friday Shopping

And so, the week begins again.

Not that I can complain. After five days off from work, some quality time with friends and family and some rather tasty food, returning to work should seem fairly easy. Naturally it's not. I think time off makes us a little greedy and shows us a side of life that we often try to cram into the two weekend days. There's something rather delicious about not having to set an alarm, about eating whenever you like, about being able to pick up a book in the middle of the day and curl up with it. However, on the flipside, without work, those luxuries would no longer be luxuries, they'd be routine. So, in a way, work isn't so bad. Most of the time.

Yet, I did have a lovely holiday. For the first time in about four years, it was organized chaos instead of pure chaos. We had a few kid-wranglers to keep the little ones out of the kitchen, we had the table set and ready to go by the time the guests arrived and aside from my father's attempted coup of the kitchen, everything went well. My father is a good cook, as I have mentioned. However, he has terrible timing. This year, despite my mother's highly efficient pre-preparation and cooking schedule, my dad decided he would not only be Vice President In Charge of Roast Potatoes but that he'd also take over the cooking even though my mother was on top of it. Fortunately, my mother managed to triumph anyway. Never underestimate the power of turkey carving to distract a man.

Aside from the traditional eating part of Thanksgiving, I also participated in another newer tradition: Black Friday. Yes, I was one of the nutcases who decided to get up at 4 a.m. to go shopping. In my defense, my sister really wanted to go and since she had accompanied me last year at my request, I owed her a trip.

So, on Friday morning at 4 a.m., I crawled out of bed, defrosted my car, picked up my sister and went to Walmart. It's an adventure, I'll tell you. Our local Walmart was (fortunately) not one of those in which people went nuts and trampled security guards to death. I also didn't see any guns. Instead, it was just a store full of hungry-eyed people, ready to fight for the death for a $25 pre-lit Christmas tree or a $2 DVD.

If you've never been to Walmart on Black Friday at 5 a.m., you've missed out on an experience I can only describe as insane. We arrived at 4:55 a.m. There were no carts except ones with baby seats attached. We took one of those but managed to find a normal cart when we were inside. Inside Walmart at 4:56 a.m., it was a bizarre sight: Hundreds of shoppers were just standing there, their carts poised but mostly unmoving except for that wolfish look in their eyes. It was almost like an episode of Heroes in which Hiro had frozen time and people were standing their, frozen. We grabbed one of the last remaining spots on an aisle and waited. I was hoping someone would blow a whistle at 5 a.m. but, instead, an announcer calmly informed us it was now 5 a.m. and shopping could begin. And it began. And ended. It was complete chaos.

My sister and I aren't big on crowds but we do like a bargain. Thus, we have a few rules that we recite in the car as we drive to Walmart. They are:

1) Never Abandon the Cart
2) Always Stick Together
3) If one of us does have to leave to go snag a bargain, Rule #1 is still in effect. One of us must always stay with the cart and NOT MOVE from the spot in which we wait. Only when the other shopper shows up can we move again.
4)Always know what you want BEFORE 5 a.m. A list is vital.

You'd be surprised how effective these rules are. And how necessary. You wouldn't believe how many people actually try to steal from other shoppers' carts. It's really like a Darwinian experiment. If you manage to snag a much-coveted copy of The Goonies and someone else wants it, well, you better watch out 'cause if you turn your back, that movie is gone.

Another trick to a successful Black Friday shopping trip is to do some research. For example, this year, I wanted one of the coveted $25 pre-lit trees. Two days before, I had made a trip to Walmart and checked out the trees to make sure it was worth the fight. I also took note of where they were normally kept. On Black Friday, about five of these trees were placed out for the shoppers to fight over and, let me tell you, there was no fight, there was merely a metaphorical cloud of snoke in the air as we watched the shoppers attack the trees. Let's just say that by 5 a.m. and thirty seconds, those trees were gone.

But they really weren't. There were still hundreds of them but they hadn't been brought out into the aisles, they were still in the Christmas section. I grabbed one, making sure it was the same one as in the ad. It was. We were the lone renegades for a while until, finally, the Walmart staff finally started to let people know where they could get their tree. By this time, my sister and I had secured almost our entire list.

If you want a mental picture of what the experience is like, picture a Walmart. Then picture the normal aisles. In the middle of these aisles are organized stacks of all of the items that are on sale for Black Friday. Then take away the organized part, throw in hundreds of people, fighting to the death to get their Flat Screen High Definition TV and then picture them using that TV as a weapon to shove people out of the way. Yeah, that's about it.

Aside from a minor injury- my sister got rammed very hard on her shin by a Woman in Search of Hannah Montana items- we escaped unscathed with a cartload of our items. Since we were up, we decided to keep shopping and hit some of the other sales. We got the best bargains and it was also relatively fun. Best of all was a shiny new Target, recently opened, in which a strange aura of calm lay. It seems that not everyone knows this Target is there yet and we managed to steal some peaceful shopping without having to fight our way through.

You might think us crazy, you might think us strange but both my sister and I now have about 80% of our shopping done. We saved money. Best of all, we got to hang out together and have fun doing it. Our one mistake was thinking that going to the mall was a good idea. It rarely is, even when it's not Christmas. Aside from that misstep, all in all, we managed to make a day of insanity into a day of fun.

Now I'm back at work, the turkey leftovers are gone and with it almost all the traces of our Thanksgiving holiday. (Except for my sister and her Black Friday bruise. It's a war injury- be proud!) It's gently snowing outside and the big fluffy flakes are settling. I know I said that it was too early for Christmas but now that pumpkin season is over, I think it's ok to enjoy the season. I confess, I put my tree up yesterday and lay under the lights, Grey's Anatomy, style to appreciate the beauty and peace that only 200 mini multicoloured lights can provide.

And so, today, though I'm back at work, I have my tree waiting for me at home. I can turn on the lights and let the day slip away as I relax in the peace of my freshly-decorated apartment. It's the small things in life that make it good.

Happy Monday.

Thoughts of Thanksgiving Dance In My Head....

Oh, I am so glad it's Friday today. It's been a long week and I'm not even sure why. It's one of those weeks in which not much has happened which is not a bad thing at all. Maybe it's because it's the week before Thanksgiving. Next week is the Official Start of the Holiday Season.

I'm very much looking forward to Thanksgiving. This is because I love turkey. I love my mother's turkey. Though we don't really celebrate Thanksgiving because we're British and all, we have enough American Interlopers in our family that we host the dinner. Which I suppose means we do celebrate the holiday really, doesn't it? I love that my mum makes it with all the British trimmings, roast potatoes, sage and onion stuffing, brussel sprouts, Bisto gravy and parsnips. I love the smell of the turkey, gently scenting the air with its meaty goodness.

I think this is the part where I'm supposed to say I love having my family around on Thanksgiving day. The thing is, Thanksgiving Day is chaos. I think it's supposed to be, that it's a tradition to have a nutty family gathering or something. Our gathering is truly nuts. There are four children who are five and under. I love these children. They're my nephews and nieces. Singularly, they're sweet (most of the time), nice children who are fun to play with. Collectively, they're a hurricane of energy and noise that suddenly stops hearing and comprehending the word "No". The house is too small for this hurricane. Add five small dogs that get excited by excitement to the mix and you have all the elements to a backdrop of absolute havoc.

I like Thanksgiving night. I like that sudden quiet lull that falls over the house as soon as my oldest brother and his family leaves. Sometimes my oldest brother stays until almost midnight. I usually wait up. There's something about that inevitable lull that I need.

This is not to say I don't love my family because I do, very much. I love having them around. It's just something about Thanksgiving that is this huge crazy blur of activity in my mind. It gets in the way of the food.

But that's a week away. At the moment, the weekend lies ahead and I'm looking forward to that. I think it's mostly because of sleep. I like it when I can stay in bed and not have to get up for work. Then again, that's sort of a given for everyone, isn't it? The only thing better is when it's rainy because the beat of the raindrops on the windowpane and the howl of the wind is the best thing in the world to listen to when you're you're lying in bed and you don't have to get up.

I don't think it's supposed to rain this weekend. It was supposed to snow but the forecast has changed. Which is probably good for you because then I'd probably have to wax poetical about snow in at least one more blog.

My goal for the weekend is to email a query letter to at least 10-15 agents. Again. I'd love to say "This is it, this is the one!" but, frankly, I'm also rather jaded. I've done this before. Granted, it was with another book but I've still done it before. The nice thing about email submissions is there's no postage required and there's no delay in getting the letter to the reader. The bad news is that rejections also come more quickly. I've had rejections less than ten minutes after sending the email. I'm trying to thicken my skin, to not take rejection so personally but, well, frankly, that part is hard. When you put a little bit of your heart and soul into a book, it's really hard to condense it into the perfect query letter. It's also tough to read contradicting advice from agents: One says the query letter is everything, another says that he'd rather effort went into editing the novel rather than be spent on crafting a great letter. It's disheartening. What's even more disheartening is when the rejection letter has a spelling/typo in it. That's happened a couple of times, believe it or not. That does not make things easier.

However, I will try and continue to try though I sometimes hear a little voice telling me to give up. I can't listen to that voice, no matter how loud it gets because, at the end of the day, I love writing and that's ultimately why I do it. Sometimes it's hard to remember that but, fortunately, I've got good people around to remind me.

So, on this Friday morning, I shall look forward to the thought of sleeping late tomorrow, of the hope of snow and of the lazy, crazy day that will Thanksgiving next week. I shall put a little piece of my heart in that query letter and hope that it resonates for someone out there. And, if not, I will keep trying. Wish me luck.

Happy Friday.