Thanksgiving is always spent at Dad D’s family’s home. It is lovingly called “The Compound”. It is a home on about 10 acres in a rural area. It was Dad D’s childhood home. His parents still live there with his sister and her family (husband and 5 kids). It is quite expansive with a huge great room with cathedral ceilings and 8-10 bedrooms and lots of bathrooms and a kitchen that can serve the 40-50 people that show up for celebrations like Thanksgiving. The whole extended family comes for the holiday, some from more than 200 miles away.
One of the most amazing things about this group is there ability to adapt and accept whatever comes their way. Dad D showing up several years ago with Dad B and Pepper and me and all our kids barely seemed to make them blink. Both our exchange students were just welcomed in as well. Wanna bring wine? Wanna bring a giant slushy maker? Got 4 or 5 friends because each of the kids want to show up with someone… not a problem. They just roll with everything.
The kids love to go there. The whole lowest level is a kids paradise. It is like going into Santa’s workshop. There are toys, video games and all kinds of different and new things each time they go there. Outside there are always four wheeled ATV’s and a paint ball field. The adults have all kinds of foods to sample and taste throughout the day and there is football on in one room, drum sets and board games in another room for the teens and little pockets of people everywhere to visit with.
One of the tasks after dinner is to plan for Black Friday shopping. Getting up and out to the mall by 4 AM is a tradition. The guys stay home and watch all the kids while the rest of us head out for great deals. We looked through all the ads and discussed where everyone wanted to go. My favorite part of shopping is going out to lunch when we are all done. We shop for HOURS and meet up at a small restaurant… we all get lunch even though it is only about 9:30 in the morning!
I look forward to spending time at the compound with Dad D’s family. What a great group. We all decided not to do the Black Friday early morning shopping trip this year. Going out in the cold at 4 AM is always exhausting.. even though there is an amazing excitement at getting to a good sale. There just did not seem to be any deals good enough this year to get us out of bed so early. I did miss getting to go out to lunch with everyone… I’ll hope for good, can’t pass up deals next year. BTW... we still left all the kids at the compound over night and let the guys watch them all... we don't want to break ALL the traditions!! ☺
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