Happy Thanksgiving

Hope all our friends and family are enjoying Thanksgiving today, we wish we were there celebrating with you. Here are some (very specific) things the kids are thankful for:



Disclaimer: Being outside the American school system, the concept of 'being thankful' was introduced to the kids today, with only moderate success. Jamie should have said that he'd be thankful if she stopped pinching his face.

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Must. Be. Thankful. Must. Be. Thankful.

UK friends: This is pretty much what Thanksgiving in the States is like

Ugh. Why do kids have to be so bloody competitive? Today we were playing Illness Poker and although I no longer have a sinus infection to play with I wagered my thrush and Jamie outbid me with chicken pox and then Maia said, 'I see your chicken pox, Jamie, and I raise you a urinary tract infection.' All right, Maia, you win. You are the ill-est of them all. Well done, have this statuette of Caligula*. Another week sacrificed to the pox, my plans for a pre-Christmas sale scuppered. So perhaps I'm not feeling as thankful as I was last year. Or maybe I just need to look past my self-pity and see the bigger picture.

*As you might have gathered, she is not an appreciative or cooperative patient.

Things I am thankful for (2010 edition):

• My micro-family: who keep me amused and bemused in equal measures but who I love with a fierceness that is overwhelming
• My macro-family: whether you be at home and abroad, thank you for being at the end of the road or the end of the phone, and for the graciousness with which you are happy to switch places
• My quasi-family: my beloved real life friends and my treasured cyber pals, both locked-and-loaded for shenanigans. Cowl dresses optional but recommended.
  
• Scotmid: Thank you for the frozen party food for our very authentic dinner tonight. Nope, not homesick at all. Eating mini spring rolls on the couch with Steven = Thanksgiving. It's the same thing.
  
• Ex-pat misfits: who understand that eating spring rolls on the couch on Thanksgiving is slightly tragic and invite you to share the proper experience with their family this weekend. Just like grown-ups do. And did so last year. And those who send you candy corn and Peeps at Halloween because life is practically meaningless without them. True fact.
  
• Apple: I might not be able to afford your products be so cool I need an Android phone, but you make Damn You Auto Correct! possible and for that I am eternally grateful
  
• Dan Simmons: Thank you for writing a book twenty years ago that I never knew about until Steven's birthday, and thank you for making it sound too scary for Steven to read without pre-vetting. It was awesome.

More than anything (and this deserves more than a pithy bullet point), I am grateful for perspective. Although I was a lot less personally affected than others, attending the funeral of someone taken from their friends and family much too young has reminded me how insignificant my personal grievances are. I am truly blessed and eternally grateful. But also pretty sleepy.

Right, peeps. Let's hear it. What are you thankful for?

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