Thanksgiving

and we are already on thanksgiving eve! (if you can say that :)
So despite waking up to no hot water this morning and going to work essentially all day for the two of us, we have a lot to be grateful for this year...
Tomorrow we will have our first Thanksgiving together with Andrew's parents-- I even have fresh cranberries to make (hopefully-knock on wood) the best cranberry sauce ever! Not to mention I've been craving pumpkin pie since the leaves started to change.

Thanksgiving also means something very special: it means that the day after I can FINALLY listen to Christmas music out loud! (yes, I've been listening to it on the ipod or at work for weeks already, but not out in the open... we have Mr Scrooge at home...) So the day after will be as much a celebration as the day of!

I'm half tempted to try out "black friday" simply because I've never done it-- but it sounds like a lot of fun/misery. In my mind I see images from "Jingle all the way" (yes, this hidden pearl of Schwarzenegger's (WOW I almost spelled that right the first time -- and the spell checker apparently has it in its dictionary...) was a family tradition and we watched it every day of December) We'll see.

Speaking of Schwarzenegger: he was an interesting presence in our family culture. My mom always had a crush on him--she was an aerobics instructor during her young adult years, so I imagine she felt a special kinship with Mr Universe because of their shared passion for... cultivation of the body?
In any case, he was her hero, so whenever I felt discouraged she would always quote him: "you know what Arnold Schwarzenegger would say? 'Set your mind on a goal and stick to it until you've reached it'" (or something to that effect...) Needless to say she was thrilled when he became the governator of California! And so, although I never saw any of the terminator movies (growing up in an all girl family...) I have probably seen all of his comedies and can quote lines such as "Dere IS NO BATHROOM!!!" (congrats if you can tell me what movie that comes from...)

Schwarzenegger has become an inevitable part of my holidays.