Thanksgiving Week!

From my first time hosting Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  It trumps Christmas, New Years and even my birthday.  Which, ok, fine, isn't an official holiday unless you're in my world...then it is.  Why do I love Thanksgiving so much?  I love that it is a holiday with no expectations beyond being thankful for what you have, where you are and what the year has brought.  The gift is the gratitude.  And I am a big fan of the food.  I was so excited when I found out I was pregnant - for the obvious reasons - but I was also excited that I'd be in the prime of my pregnancy during the holidays.  Would I like an extra serving of sweet potato casserole?  Well, I am eating for two...  Pass the yummy, there's a baby in my tummy!

This is where having our families on the east coast gets especially hard.  We have been alternating holidays with each side of the family for years now.  One year it's a Baltimore Thanksgiving and a Florida Christmas.  The next it's a Florida Thanksgiving and a Baltimore Christmas.  It's a lot of travel within a few weeks but it was worth it.  However, a few years back, we decided that while the traveling isn't so bad, the paying to travel is a bit ridiculous.  I think it should be illegal for the airlines to hike their prices for the holidays but no such legislation has been passed (yet!  I should get on top of writing a proposal) so we decided to start staying home for Thanksgiving and saving at least a thousand dollars in the process.  It's been difficult being away from our families on my favorite holiday but we've made adjustments that make up for it.  First, since we miss Thanksgiving with the fam, we started a new tradition called "Febsgiving."  It's where we travel in February, when airfare is MUCH more reasonable, to see the family we should have seen at Thanksgiving.  We make it a long weekend, everyone gets together without other holiday obligations thwarting plans, and we have a feast!  This year we're having everyone come to us for Febsgiving though...since we'll have a brand new baby boy!  We also found out that a lot of dear friends here in Los Angeles didn't travel for both holidays either because of the piracy of the skies, so we started celebrating Thanksgiving together with big potluck gatherings.

Most of our friends that we've celebrated with in years past though got the opportunity to go home for Thanksgiving this year so, instead of a big friends-gathering, we are going low key with our dear friends Steve and Emily...who are also expecting their first baby!  Emily is due about four weeks after me, which has been so much fun.  Steve and my husband have been friends since high school and Steve was even in our wedding.  We love that they live out here in California now (Emily is originally from here!) and we get to hang out and spend time together.  And I can't wait to have a pregnant feast with them!  We've had an email chain going about what goodies we all want to bring to the table and I have a feeling we'll have enough food to last a week.  Although, with two pregnant women in the house, guessing how far food quantity will go is a risky gamble.  Thankful, indeed!

More tomorrow on baby-specific things.  We got some more work done on the nursery and made some more big ticket furniture purchases (ouch) over the weekend.  Lots to share...and be thankful for!