Though I’ve always been a fan of Thanksgiving (who doesn’t love 4 consecutive days away from work/school/life?), the holiday has never been extremely special for me. Yes, I’ve been living pretty far away from home for the last seven years, so going home, seeing family, and eating home-cooked food is always special (holiday or not), but no Thanksgiving has ever been extremely memorable for me. But for some reason, Thanksgiving 2007 was like The Best Week Ever.
I say week because I was literally home the entire week. My mom is currently in India attending some family weddings, so I went home for the whole week to give my dad company. I flew home the Sunday night before Thanksgiving, and spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday enjoying the spaciousness of 4-digit square footage. Though I was technically on the job those three days, work trickled in at a slower pace. All of my trips in the last year have been hectic – weddings, jam-packed vactions, quick jaunts home, etc – so having those three extra days away from New York but without much to do let me truly unwind before the Thanksgiving mayhem kicked off. For most of the week, I didn’t go out and I didn’t meet up with friends, I just stayed at home and hung out with my dad, sister, and Spanky (our spoiled brat of a cat).
On Wednesday, my dad and I played two and a half hours of tennis with a couple of our other family friends. Its been over a year since I’ve played tennis, he just started playing again after an even longer hiatus, and its probably been at least 10 years since we last played together. He had a pretty serious medical procedure performed on him in the last few months, so being with him on the court was, quite simply, amazing.
On Thursday, my cousins from Orlando came over for lunch. We reminisced about the old days. After eating, we all left together for the real Thanksgiving festivities, held at an aunt’s house two hours away in West Palm Beach. I rode with my cousins. Did you know you can fit four people into a Carrera. Possible? Yes. Comfortable? No. (But luckily, I at least snagged the front seat).
(Also, I’ve had the chance to drive it a few times, and let me just say…I. Want. One. Are you there Santa? It’s me, Amish.)
In West Palm, we met up with the other 80% of our extended family, and we ‘kids’ spent the afternoon playing a lengthy game of 3-on-3 football. I’m not going to lie, I was awesome. I ran slants and posts with utmost precision, and juked the heck out of my cousins left and right. But my team lost 8-7 (or 56-49) when the game was called on account of parents yelling at us to get showered up for dinner. Also the mosquitoes were starting to bite. One of my aunt’s hosted the dinner party that night, and we spent the evening eating traditional Thanksgiving fare (traditional meaning samosas, paneer, rice, etc), enjoying margaritas and beer, and playing poker until 4am (I lost in that too).
On Friday, I went out for a round of golf with two of my cousins. Now, I don’t consider myself a pro by any means, but I have been playing golf for about 7 years now, whereas my cousins had only been playing for 2-3. I thought for sure that my score would be the lowest one on the scorecard that day. I was pretty even with one of the cousins throughout the round, but the other cousin unexpectedly tore us apart. Every single shot – his drivers, his 3 wood, his irons, and his putter – were completely on target. I think he only messed up one stroke the entire round; while I was nailing car windshields with a nasty hook (a story for another day), he was nailing pars and birdies. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be a big deal – I’ve played with plenty of ridiculously good players before – but this was particularly noteworthy because he is eight years old.
Yes, I got my ass handed to me in golf by a four-and-a-half foot tall 8-year old!
And I’m not just saying he got more pars than me because I adjusted them for him (par 3′s became par 4′s, etc) to compensate for his lack of stroke distance. I’m saying that at the end of the day, he took less total strokes to get through the same number of holes as us (with clubs the size of ball point pens, no less).
Perhaps the most ridiculous event of the whole round was when the older of the two cousins (the 23 year old) muffed a drive that only trickled a few feet forward. He took a mulligan, and the kid waddled up babbling (like all eight year olds do) what seemed like a haphazard selection of tips he had picked up from his teacher. The older cousin, realizing any advice would be helpful, decided to follow the suggestions of the kid, adjusting his stance, shoulders, posture, and whatever else had been suggested. Boom – picture perfect 250 yard drive. Jaws dropped. The scorecard was later saved as a souvenir, the entire family in complete amazement upon hearing the results.
We gathered at another aunt’s house for lunch, and all of us cousins spent the afternoon playing on the driveway. The girls bumped a volleyball back and forth while the guys played basketball. We played fetch with the dog. I tried numerous times to ride a RipStik (failing miserably 9 times out of 10). All of us, ages 5 to 28, were out there for hours, completely living in the moment. I know it sounds cliche, but it was a completely zen moment, all of us just playing like kids and forgetting all else in the world.
(Another zen moment: zipping down the interstate in a Boxter with the top down. Don’t ask me to explain why two cousins each younger than me drive Porsches.)
That night was authentic Mexican food and margaritas. Pretty sure you all don’t need me to explain why I enjoyed that. And while this already seems like a great week, with its minimal work, tennis, football, golf, family, Porsche driving, and food, that only got me to Friday. On Saturday, I got to enjoy one of my most favorite things in the world: college football.
I drove up to Gainesville early Saturday morning for to meet up with John, a high school friend still attending law school there, and Kellen, who came from Jacksonville. We spent the afternoon tailgating, playing bocce ball and beer pong (strangely, one game included the husband of a Member of Congress), before heading over to the stadium for the UF-FSU game. Not the nation’s premier rivalry, of course, but a good one.
I had been to the Swamp once before – for the same game a couple years ago. Our seats were high up, we couldn’t hear the band, and in general I hadn’t found the experience that impressive. This time, however, Kellen had scored us a couple of tickets in the 10th row of the student section on the 20 yard line. And while I generally hate giving Florida credit for anything over Michigan, I will say that the experience was amazing. It was a night game, the stadium was loud, and the Gators rolled over FSU with ease. As much as I thought Mike Hart was a candidate this year (until he got injured), Tebow’s presence on the field won my Heisman vote. And if the Big House renovations mean our stadium will produce a similar atmosphere as that night, then by all means count me in. After last year’s BCS debacle, I had developed a strong indifference toward UF, pretty much hoping for their season to tank and relishing their losses when it did. Saturday night helped bring me back to at least rooting for them again. (Urban Meyer, I still hate you.)
That game capped off a great week. I spent most of Sunday catching up on sleep, trying to unwind one last time before coming back to New York and “life”. I’m headed back to Florida in three weeks for the holidays, and can only hope that it will be as fun.
