Thanksmas - The Holiday Of Efficiency | The Odyssey Online
Start writing a post
Relationships

Thanksmas - The Holiday Of Efficiency

Thanksgiving and Christmas, all in one.

Liz Burgin
Nov 21, 2016
Dubuque, IA
97
Thanksmas - The Holiday Of Efficiency
Milada Vigerova / Unsplash

Some family's are traditional. For the most part, so is mine. But not on Thanksgiving.

I have 2 sisters but now that they have families we grand total 11 people. Five years ago my sister chose to quit making the trek from PA to IA for Christmas anymore. I sympathize with that. Traveling is tough, and she had a toddler that made the magic of Christmas more magical at home then in a car for 12 hours. So.......

Thanksmas was born.

Let's break it down.

The Thanksgiving portion is done in one day, usually Friday to allow for a long weekend of holiday fun. There are still potatoes, turkey, relishs, pies and usually one or two stragglers from my extended family.

We cook all day (read - run around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get my mom to add more butter and salt to everything), set the table (read, chaotically tell the 3 year old to stop grabbing all the place settings off the table), get ready for dinner (read - fight for the one shower at my parents house and cameras are always threatening to capture the moment at dinner) say a prayer and eat. We follow with some after dinner drinks and conversation while the kids play.

Christmas follows the next day. We all wake up and set up the Christmas tree while we drink coffee and hawk any free standing food. Once the tree is up, we put our wrapped presents (or wrap our presents as fast and as haphazardly as we can) under the tree and start making the Christmas meal (read -desserts, we're really just having thanksgiving dinner again) we usually eat a late lunch/early dinner around 3. The extended family stragglers have either stayed the night or come back again to celebrate.

We eat and make a batch of grasshoppers (alcoholic of course, we are Catholics) and head downstairs to the magical land of presents and Christmas. The gifts are exchanged with our sister from PA. So she gives us our gifts and we give her ours.

The kids all get a presents, and we sit around and play the new board game they got or set up the toys that undoubtedly don't have batteries. Everyone goes to bed stuffed (slightly buzzed) and ready to continue our off-beat little tradition the next day.

On Sunday it depends but sometimes my sister for PA will stay the day and drive back on Monday, so Sunday starts with church and is followed by the signature gigantor breakfasts my mom insists upon. The kids continue playing with their toys and the holiday season is over for us.

Until actual Christmas, when we still have Christmas, just down one sister.

Cheers, and I hope you find an odd tradition of your own to be thankful for this year.

Report this Content
This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
Student Life

12 Things I Learned my Freshmen Year of College

When your capability of "adulting" is put to the test

Hempstead, New York
67
friends

Whether you're commuting or dorming, your first year of college is a huge adjustment. The transition from living with parents to being on my own was an experience I couldn't have even imagined- both a good and a bad thing. Here's a personal archive of a few of the things I learned after going away for the first time.

Keep Reading...Show less
freshmen year
Featured

Economic Benefits of Higher Wages

Nobody deserves to be living in poverty.

Florida International University
299996
Illistrated image of people crowded with banners to support a cause
StableDiffusion

Raising the minimum wage to a livable wage would not only benefit workers and their families, it would also have positive impacts on the economy and society. Studies have shown that by increasing the minimum wage, poverty and inequality can be reduced by enabling workers to meet their basic needs and reducing income disparities.

I come from a low-income family. A family, like many others in the United States, which has lived paycheck to paycheck. My family and other families in my community have been trying to make ends meet by living on the minimum wage. We are proof that it doesn't work.

Keep Reading...Show less
Entertainment

11 Thoughts A Writer Has While Writing

Told through Parks & Recreation GIFs

Millennials of New England
145
blank paper
Allena Tapia

As an English Major in college, I have a lot of writing and especially creative writing pieces that I work on throughout the semester and sometimes, I'll find it hard to get the motivation to type a few pages and the thought process that goes behind it. These are eleven thoughts that I have as a writer while writing my stories.

Keep Reading...Show less
writers
Entertainment

13 Times April Ludgate Perfectly Explained College

Because who understands your bitterness better than April?

Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis
465
April Ludgate

Every college student knows and understands the struggle of forcing themselves to continue to care about school. Between the piles of homework, the hours of studying and the painfully long lectures, the desire to dropout is something that is constantly weighing on each and every one of us, but the glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel helps to keep us motivated. While we are somehow managing to stay enrolled and (semi) alert, that does not mean that our inner-demons aren't telling us otherwise, and who is better to explain inner-demons than the beloved April Ludgate herself? Because of her dark-spirit and lack of filter, April has successfully been able to describe the emotional roller-coaster that is college on at least 13 different occasions and here they are.

Keep Reading...Show less
april ludgate
Adulting

Being A Senior: The Best And Worst Of It

Graduation is coming.

Loyola University Chicago
323
college
Pinterest

For many undergraduates across the nation, the home stretch has begun. Only one more semester remains in our undergraduate career. Oh, the places we will go! For the majority of college seniors, this is simultaneously the best and worst year out of the past four and here’s why.

1. The classes you are taking are actually difficult.

A schedule full of easy pottery throwing and film courses is merely a myth on the average campus. With all of those prerequisites for the upper-level courses and the never-ending battle you fight each year during registration for limited class seats, senior year brings with it the ability to register for the final courses you need to fulfill your major. Yet, these are not the easy entry level courses. These are the comprehensive, end of major, capstone courses designed to apply the knowledge from all your previous courses, usually in the form of an extensive research paper or engaged learning project. The upside is you actually probably really enjoy these classes but alas there is no room for slackers here.

Keep Reading...Show less
college seniors

Trending Topics

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Facebook Comments