Thanksgiving is almost over for us this year. (We have one more Friendsgiving tonight to attend and more leftovers to eat this weekend.) I’m excited for the Christmas season to start, but this year I want everything to slow down because as soon as the holidays are over, the baby will be here.

But right now, I’d just like to talk about the differences between my family’s Thanksgiving and Andrew’s family Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving #1 happened on Thursday and involved us getting up at 6am to drive down and see my family. My family get-togethers are loud, raucous, and generally not predictable. This year wasn’t too crazy, but it still involved 5 dogs (one was shut into the only bathroom in the house so anytime someone wanted to use it, they had to be careful not to let the dog out), a fight over car maintenance, and an in-depth conversation about nose hair trimming. I’m sure Andrew is still disappointed he missed out on last year.

Last year, one of my aunts swore there was supposed to be a solar eclipse, so we all spent 10 minutes staring out the window at the empty backyard. I finally got fed up and went to use the bathroom and while I was gone, a bunch of my cousins frantically called my aunt outside to see the solar eclipse. Instead, she was treated to a few full moons as she stepped out the door.

My sister also kicked open my bedroom door at 3am last Thanksgiving Eve when she came home from a party. I sat up out of a dead sleep, grabbed Ralph, and started screaming at the top of my lungs because I thought a murderer had broken in. But that’s another story.

Thanksgiving #2 was Friday. We drove over to Andrew’s house for a small get-together with just his parents and sister. Even when we are together with all of the cousins and extended family, it is nothing like my family. We discussed a piece that NPR did on dogs and their comprehension, talked about the baby registries, and watched Ralph run around and lap up all of the attention. It involved way more food then we needed, Christmas music in the background, and calmly and quietly discussing topics of interest.

Don’t get me wrong, it is nice to have a cool, calm, and collected holiday gathering. But to me it just isn’t Thanksgiving unless someone falls down in the kitchen, an uncle falls asleep in my bed, and my sister and I die laughing because when my aunt emotionally asks where our dead cat is, we thought she was dramatically asking my dad about where his hat went.

We still look at each other, horror-stricken, and yell “Oh my god, where’s your hat?!?”

And that is Thanksgiving.