12/02/02’s illustrious band:

The Butterball Follies

Brought to you by Mother Media’s side of the family. Get this bunch all hopped up on turkey and dressing and there’s no telling what will happen.

The whole of the Thanksgiving holiday is too complex to recount, but I can provide a few highlights. They include:

• Having so much food for Thanksgiving dinner that we forgot to put some of it on the table. Thank you to the Hostess With the Mostess for specifying that green bean cassarole was not invited to the party.
  
• The entire clan (with the exception of Granny) taking turns riding the Hostess’s exercise ball like a bronc. This includes those family members pushing 70. No one was shy. I think Mother Media earned extra style points for some especially flamboyant dismounts.
  
• Playing “Christmas pie,” a game I learned from WhoSEZ, who tells me it’s an old English tradition. To make a Christmas pie, you gather a bunch of inexpensive gifts (lottery tickets, candies, stuff from the local dollar store), tie or tape a long strand of ribbon to each one, and put them all into a box or bag, with ribbons protruding. Everyone gets at least one chance to grasp a ribbon and follow it to its attached gift. Hours of fun for the whole family! Sister-san won this year’s rubber chicken award, which consisted of . . . a rubber chicken. According to the packaging, it feels completely lifelike. I’ll take the manufacturer’s word for it.
  
• Walking, walking, walking. This group walks after every meal -- and there’s no shortage of meals! -- and also for fun. A couple of my favorite uncles almost ended up in the pond during the post-turkey stroll. We spent Friday striding along the Katy Trail and among the antique shops of Rocheport. It would have been a great way to work off some calories from the big feast if we hadn’t stopped for an elegant lunch and ended the day with spaghetti and pie at Wienador House. I heard a rumor that some people even stopped for ice cream on the way back to their hotel.
  
• Taking a few photos. Did I say a few? I meant a few thousand! Mother Media and all four of her siblings showed up with cameras in hand. So did Granny’s boyfriend Charlie, and Sister-san and I, and the Hostess. Did I miss anybody? Half the T-day entertainment consisted of posing for portraits, and the other half of gathering around the computer to review the digital shots.
  
• Driving. It ain’t a family outing until everyone has climbed in and out of the car a few dozen times a day. Again, we do this to work of some of the calorie intake. With Thanksgiving celebrants scattered among four towns and a play day in a fifth, plus various handoffs, drop-offs and errands, we had no shortage of opportunities for exercising our vehicles. Oh, and did I mention the 700 or so miles of driving involved in getting there?
  

It was all good. Very, very good. I was sorry to find Granny in such grey spirits, but visiting everyone else was a hoot. Let’s do it again next year.