Captain's Log, Day 58: Thanksgiving with My Family! (and all the ensuing craziness)

          And now, I shall recount some Thanksgiving Day adventures!
          A typical Thanksgiving tale must start on the day before, as that is when the Great Rejoicing starts (NO SCHOOL!!!!!!!!). Since we are going to our grandparents' house the next day, it only makes sense for my siblings and me to go run out into the woods and get as banged up as we can without warranting a trip to the hospital. Also, this is sometimes when we do our annual family watching of "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving." It's been a tradition in my home for as long as I can remember...
          Anyway, after staying up waaay too late to be any kind of ready for early church the next day, we wake up to a very cheerful dad, who takes gleeful pleasure in rousting our kiesters out of our warm beds and into the car. After Mass, we have a light breakfast before piling into the car to go to our grandparents' farm. It's about an hour drive, as a normal person drives; Dad breaks all speed limits, including that of light, Mom naps, I nap, and my siblings either read or play Mad Libs. Seems like every time they do that, they must use the words "warthog," "rototiller," "exploded," and "antidisestablimentarianism," which I would hope they used a shorthand for, else it would take them longer to spell the word than it would take to play the game!
          The car ride over, we enter our grandparents' house and make the necessary greetings and small talk before vanishing into the basement. Our cousins are always there before us, and they (predictably) have divided the basement and segregated themselves by gender: boys get one half, girls get the other. Also predictably, the boys' half is larger; they probably started out equally sized, but the boys have been practicing combat maneuvers for a while, causing the girls to retreat due to fear of death by Nerf. My brother and I pick up a couple guns (although sometimes we bring our own, which we prefer--our are MODIFIED!!!!) and enter the fray. I have no idea what the girls left to go do. Probably playing tea party or something equally boring.
          And hour afterwards, it's DINNERTIME!!! The segregation continues; the girls get to eat in the living room, the boys in the craft room. Can't fault Grandma for the wisdom of that one; the food fights that occasionally break out amongst my male cousins would quickly prove fatal to anything "nice." As the oldest, it's my job to try to suppress such outbreaks. Fortunately, I've been gifted with a long arm and a good eye; a whack upside the head typically ends a would-be food thrower's attempt. At the least, it scrambles his aim enough that the food ends up on the table somewhere, instead of, say, the wall. Or someone else's face, which would definitely escalate the conflict.
          The piranha now having finished inhaling every bit of food in the vicinity, we break for games, typically outside on the haystack. This is usually gender-inclusive, as we do not have the man-power to hold the giant haystack against intruders (not to say we haven't tried). Once the girls gain the top, we put aside animosity and hold a rousing game of tag. Occasionally, we must stop and rescue someone who has fallen down between the bales, but that's not as common of an occurrence as one might think. Of course, my relatives and I have usually had so much pie that we're on a sugar high and are vibrating out of the visible spectrum, thus making any sort of falling extremely difficult, owing to the fact that we can now flap our arms fast enough to fly...
          Sometimes, it's warm enough for a kickball game, although a Minnesota November is typically enough to make polar bears migrate south, so that doesn't happen often. We usually stay on the haybales until we can't feel our fingers, toes or kiesters anymore, at which point it's usually time for my family and me to hit the road anyway. So, my siblings and I brush the hay off each other, bid farewell to the relatives, climb into the car and crash before Dad pulls out onto the highway.
          After this, we have a light dinner at home and then go to bed early, after vowing to unclog the shower drains of all the hay and dirt tomorrow. Thus ends Thanksgiving with my family!