Thanksgiving 2021
So, I am back home in Ithaca! Friday was a LONG day on the road -- about an hour longer than expected, actually, because of snow and sleet and such, starting in eastern Ohio. But we made it and got Chinese takeout for dinner, so that was okay.
Thanksgiving itself went pretty well. We had reserved a takeout order from Maggiano's (which is apparently a chain of moderately upscale Italian restaurants -- this specific one is in the Westfield Old Orchard Mall) that supposedly fed four or five people. Honestly, it would have fed eight with no problem, and quite possibly ten if no one got greedy. So we had lots of leftovers. :)
We picked up the order at 1:30pm and ate around 2pm.
Um. It occurs to me I should describe the hotel a little, yes? Yes. So, we got one suite and one regular hotel room, which were connected via a double door. The suite had a kitchenette (full-size fridge, dishwasher, some cabinets, a two-burner stove with a provided pot and pan), and a small table with two chairs. The living room had a sofa (with a pullout bed), an armchair, and a sort of worktable area. That table turned out to be an exact match for the dining table, so we combined them to make a five-seater table and set up a card table (ours) and an end table (the hotel's) to make a serving area.
Nick and I shared the suite -- he slept on the sofa bed, and I slept on one of the queen beds in the bedroom -- and Mom and Dad shared the regular room.
Aunt Cara arrived around 11am for hors d'oeuvres and conversation, which was nice. I hadn't seen her in... I think going on three years? We cancelled Thanksgiving last year (it would have been this same plan, but the Covid vaccines weren't available yet so we decided better safe than sorry) and in 2019 she got the flu or something of that ilk the day before she would have started driving to New Jersey.
After the Thanksgiving meal, Dad and Aunt Cara took a short walk around the hotel (Dad has been having issues with one of his feet for going on two years, and Aunt Cara has some general mobility issues) while Mom, Nick, and I took a ~1.25 mile walk in a local park next to a tributary of the Chicago River. It was chilly, but not too bad if you had gloves and some kind of head-covering. The path died at a bridge where a local road/highway crossed the stream, and it was starting to get dark so we turned back rather than go exploring.
In the afternoon and evening, we packaged and divvied up leftovers, and then played two rounds of Chronology (specifically the old version, not the 20th anniversary version) and two rounds of Uno (we play old-school, none of this customizable card and special rule card nonsense).
We also drank a possibly unwise amount of wine (I think 4.5 bottles, two of which were champagne equivalents), but that was spread over about nine hours and five people, so eh.
And that was my Thanksgiving. :) If you want to comment on this post, you can do so over here on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)
Thanksgiving itself went pretty well. We had reserved a takeout order from Maggiano's (which is apparently a chain of moderately upscale Italian restaurants -- this specific one is in the Westfield Old Orchard Mall) that supposedly fed four or five people. Honestly, it would have fed eight with no problem, and quite possibly ten if no one got greedy. So we had lots of leftovers. :)
We picked up the order at 1:30pm and ate around 2pm.
Um. It occurs to me I should describe the hotel a little, yes? Yes. So, we got one suite and one regular hotel room, which were connected via a double door. The suite had a kitchenette (full-size fridge, dishwasher, some cabinets, a two-burner stove with a provided pot and pan), and a small table with two chairs. The living room had a sofa (with a pullout bed), an armchair, and a sort of worktable area. That table turned out to be an exact match for the dining table, so we combined them to make a five-seater table and set up a card table (ours) and an end table (the hotel's) to make a serving area.
Nick and I shared the suite -- he slept on the sofa bed, and I slept on one of the queen beds in the bedroom -- and Mom and Dad shared the regular room.
Aunt Cara arrived around 11am for hors d'oeuvres and conversation, which was nice. I hadn't seen her in... I think going on three years? We cancelled Thanksgiving last year (it would have been this same plan, but the Covid vaccines weren't available yet so we decided better safe than sorry) and in 2019 she got the flu or something of that ilk the day before she would have started driving to New Jersey.
After the Thanksgiving meal, Dad and Aunt Cara took a short walk around the hotel (Dad has been having issues with one of his feet for going on two years, and Aunt Cara has some general mobility issues) while Mom, Nick, and I took a ~1.25 mile walk in a local park next to a tributary of the Chicago River. It was chilly, but not too bad if you had gloves and some kind of head-covering. The path died at a bridge where a local road/highway crossed the stream, and it was starting to get dark so we turned back rather than go exploring.
In the afternoon and evening, we packaged and divvied up leftovers, and then played two rounds of Chronology (specifically the old version, not the 20th anniversary version) and two rounds of Uno (we play old-school, none of this customizable card and special rule card nonsense).
We also drank a possibly unwise amount of wine (I think 4.5 bottles, two of which were champagne equivalents), but that was spread over about nine hours and five people, so eh.
And that was my Thanksgiving. :) If you want to comment on this post, you can do so over here on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)