My Thanksgiving tradition started back in 1998, in Charlotte, where my cousins and I would celebrate the holiday with an all-night movie marathon + planning for our Black Friday shopping extravaganza. This is before online deals existed and planning involved looking through all the newspaper leaflets, manually comparing deals, making a list, figuring out who opened how early, bundling up in our warmest clothes, and then deciding how to store-hop at the crack of dawn (anyone else do this!?).
Sounds completely ridiculous now, but it was so much fun! I still remember how the rewritable CDs and DVDs were our hot items, and I kid you not when I say that I still have some leftover from that stockpile 20-years-ago. Something else that is very foretelling from that 1998 Thanksgiving is that, it is also when I met my now hubs Devang for the first time.
Devang went to the same high-school as my cousin Roshani, and as the only two Indians in their entire school, they were bound to be friends. He must have decided to drop by during the Thanksgiving of 1998 and say hello! I don’t remember any sparks or connections between us (as confirmed by both of us), but it’s still funny to think about how it all worked out. (We would keep running into each other in Charlotte and later at UNC for several years before we started officially dating a month before our graduation in 2003.)
Now in 2018, our Thanksgiving looks slightly different needless to say. We get together at the same aunt’s house but the number of guests has drastically increased. We also have changed our focus from shopping to eating. Our spread now includes traditional Thanksgiving dishes with spicy Indian sides thrown in the mix too. We have also swapped the movie marathon for football and a card game called Kanasta, which has been a family favorite for as long as I can remember (now played only once a year during Thanksgiving). It’s amazing to see our spouses and kids be a part of this celebration which honestly started only because we wanted some free CDs and DVDs! = )
Here are some of the other things we managed to squeeze in the holiday weekend.
**We took the train to the Spectrum Arena in Uptown Charlotte to see the Hornets play basketball against the Pacers. We celebrated their win with some ice cream and giant gingerbread house at Bar Cocoa at the Ritz-Carlton.
**Some hot cocoa and Christmas tree time at Birkdale Village in Lake Norman.
**A Birthday lunch to Celebrate my mom’s birthday!
**Driver’s Ed for when the kids are ready to drive. Grandparents believe in starting them early I suppose.
**Relaxing times at the grandparents!
Living the life that I do, it’s hard not to wake up every morning and feel the comfort and love that surrounds me each day. I am so thankful for my family and friends, and for this amazing life! I am also thankful for all of you who somehow keep up with this little blog and make me feel so special! Cheers to all of you, and all of us, and to a perfect start to the holiday season!
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