It's finally here! Everyone's favorite eating/football/giant inflatable balloon parade holiday is upon us. I'm not hosting this year (shout-out to my fellow Thanksgiving hosting virgins), so I'm excited to make small talk with my relatives while grazing appetizers, sipping fizzy drinks, and secretly hoping that my offers to help in the kitchen are politely brushed off. (Wait, that sounds bad; let the record show that we are bringing contributions of food and booze.)

As you can tell, my family tends to be pretty traditional in our Turkey Day celebrations. (Dear god, I just called it Turkey Day. I'm officially old and lame.) It's not that I don't recognize the complicated origin of this holiday — I do — it's that I'm still processing how to handle it. In the meantime, I think it's OK to still enjoy the traditions and the warm fuzzies they create, to be thankful for the present while actively remembering the past, and letting that inform our attempts to move toward a better future. Along these same lines, I'm thankful to have actual downtime with my family, where there's not much for us to do together except eat, relax and just be (OK, and a few tasks related to food and dishes, but still). I especially enjoy the after-meal bonding that takes place as we all loaf around, angled toward the TV, digesting together like it's a team sport. One thing that's certain is that it takes some time to recover from the big meal. Here's what I suspect we're all thinking in those lazy hours...