gobble gobble

thanksgiving used to be my favorite holiday. not because of the food or drink or family time, but because it was the only 4 day weekend that i got to to take all year. now that my job is so much more flexible, the time off isn't as important to me. and lately i've been taking a look at people's holiday behaviors and traditions, and can't help but wonder if people do what they do because they *want to* or because you don't mess with tradition.

even as a kid, i've always thought that the macy's day parade was super cheesy. i don't understand the excitement over huge balloon cartoon characters. and don't get me started on the dance numbers..

you'd think as a frugal shopper, black friday would be right up my alley, right? the answer to that is not just no, but HELL NO. i can't understand why *anyone* would wake up early in the cold, stand in line, and run the risk of getting trampled to save $100 on a printer. i like to find my deals without so many people, preferably on the computer while in my jammies. i save my energy for the day after Christmas sales, which are much less crowded.

this year jared had to work, and i had 4 options on how to spend my holiday.
#1) just me, the pups, and a big pumpkin pie
#2) hang out with my friend marc and his two bachelor buddies
#3) dinner with my friend jess and her family in castle rock
#4) 4 mile turkey trot with my friend deb and dinner at her house afterwards, pups included

since i am now facing the realities of looking good in a wedding dress, i opted for #4 and planned to be ready at 8am to make our race costumes*.

thursday morning, i woke up with a killer sore throat and felt a cold coming on. i knew deb wouldn't believe that i was sick, so i decided to load up on throat lozenges and just take it easy during the walk.

our costumes took a little longer to make than we anticipated, so by the time we checked into the race, we were already in the last wave, the family fun run. we started the race and right after passing the 1 mile walk, a friend in our group wanted to cut across the park and finish early, "before they run out of beer!". suddenly, i started to see the appeal of these races and realized why so many people participated.. it's not the exercise, it's the party afterwards!

luckily, several others in our group, myself included, wanted to keep walking. so we did another mile and a bit, and then we walked by the bathrooms. some people had to go, so we stopped, fully intending to keep going. but then we passed the beer garden and decided that we would just take a quick stop to have a beer and then finish the race. i'm sure you can guess how well that plan worked. before we knew it, they were packing up the beer garden and shooing us out. the race was over, and we hadn't even crossed the finish line or returned our shoe timer chips. oops.

the rest of the day was fairly uneventful - we cooked and ate and drank and burped and loosened our pants and watched movies. we were interrupted for about 30 minutes by my friends 23 yr old roommate and her guy friends who stopped by on their way to the game. after listening to their stupid, 23-yr old banter, i felt about 100 years old, but i digress.

throughout the day, my sore throat started to develop into a full blown cold, which i am still battling today. i decided to take my pie with me and leave early because i'm pretty sure i was grossing everyone out with all my sniffling.

but even with my cold, i had a great day - the trot was definitely outside my comfort zone at first, but something i realized that i enjoyed and could do again. it's so nice to have the freedom to do what i *want* on my holiday's, instead of what is expected, and that's a tradition i hope to stick with.

*which consisted of t-shirts that said "goofy gobbler" on the front and "shake your tail feathers" on the back, along with a headband and tail made out of real turkey feathers that deb found on the internet. they were quite the attention grabbers at the race.