A Lovely Long Weekend
At home. My restless soul, paired with Tommy’s restless soul, doesn’t spend a lot of four day weekends at home. Like, almost none. But this last weekend, we did. And actually, it was great.
As Covid cases were rising, we decided not to go to Dallas as planned for Thanksgiving with my parents. It would have been only my parents and us, but we decided to cancel even that. So we were unexpectedly at home, with no plans. I felt so sad, because I love Thanksgiving with my family, and because it just felt like one more thing lost to this year.
But thankfully, somehow, plans happened. I figured out ordering the turkey from The Salt Lick and making most of the sides myself. I made everything on Wednesday, so I didn’t have to spend the day in the kitchen. Instead, I watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (so much gratitude to them figuring out how to do that this year) with the girls while Facetiming with my mom, discussing all the parade performances and just casually chatting. We had a toast with my aunt and uncle and parents over Zoom, and zoomed with my parents over the meal. We zoomed with my dad’s side of the family in the afternoon, in a rambling, noisy but somehow so normal call.
It was somehow really relaxed, and fun. I expected to be teary and sad all day, but instead, it was really fun to be together, both with our nuclear family and on the internet with my big family. We played games online (Among Us and Jackbox) with my cousins that night, which was fun and reminded me how much I enjoy hanging out with them.
Friday, we ran errands (curbside pickup!), prepared the decorations for Harper’s teacher’s door, ordered tons of Christmas presents online (I’m almost done shopping), and hung out. The day went by pretty quickly. We went to a friends backyard for a socially-distanced happy hour outside. It was a little cold, but we put our coats on and it was so great to see people.
Saturday, we decorated - the tree, ourselves, and the rest of the house. We have a tradition where we buy an ornament on every trip, and then when we decorate the tree, it’s a journey down memory lane. It’s so fun to remember each trip together. We stayed in our pajamas all day, made hot chocolate, and played games in the afternoon. I buy, and people give us, so many toys, games and art supplies to use at home, but we have always been so on the go we don't ever use them up. Sometimes it feels like we are rushing the stuff to use it up before they outgrow it, and we don’t always succeed. But with more time at home, we are actually able to use some of our stuff, and it turns out, it’s pretty fun to use a lot of it. We played Ticket to Ride online with my dad at night.
The forced injection of slowness and unstructured time has been an opportunity for us to connect in new ways, to be together, and to relax more deeply and find more joy at home.