Thanksgiving

I hate turkey. I can eat chicken till the cows chickens (?) come home, but for whatever reason, the thought of turkey grosses me out. I can't seem to get the image of feathers and a gobble out of my head. I'm weird like that about a lot of foods...you can judge me. One might think that not liking turkey could pose an "Achilles' Heel" of sorts when it comes to Thanksgiving, but despite my quirky distaste, Thanksgiving remains one of my favorite holidays.

This Thanksgiving in particular will be a special one for me. It's my first time going home and the first time I'll see my brother and sister since August, when I moved into college! They say distance makes the heart grow fonder (cheesy, I know), and I have found this to be really true when it comes to being away from my family at school. It's kind of poetic that I've spent this extended time away from them and our reunion will be on the holiday when you recognize and appreciate all you're thankful for. I am also super excited to be spending Thanksgiving with my cousins this year. A couple of my cousins are also freshmen in college, so it'll be so fun to hang out and exchange stories from the semester.

Me and some of the best people on earth (aka the sibs)

Traditions are also one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving. Most of my family's Thanksgiving traditions revolve around food. No matter what time of year it is, my mouth is sure to water at the thought of my Aunt Merry's twice-baked potatoes or my family's generations-old stuffing pie recipe (sounds weird, but its to-die-for). I am a big baker so I am definitely looking forward to trying out one or two of the 3,736 (and counting) recipes I've collected on my Pinterest recipe board.

I've been celebrating Christmas since Halloween ended, but Thanksgiving definitely marks the official start of the holiday season. It's when Christmas songs start playing on the radio, and it becomes socially acceptable to order daily peppermint mochas from Starbucks (however, social norms have not stopped me from doing this for the past three weeks)! One of the things I'm most looking forward to this year is a tradition my brother, sister and I started a few years back of watching Elf on Thanksgiving night to mark the start of the Christmas season. I'm all about living in the moment and appreciating one holiday at time, but there's a reason the last float on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is Santa Claus every year.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas (on Thanksgiving)!

Do y'all have any unique Thanksgiving traditions?  Anyone wanna make me feel more normal and confess to having turkey problems too? No? Okay, that's cool. I get it. I'm an odd one...