- No one was wearing a headband with construction-paper feathers, nor a cardboard Pilgrim hat with an over-sized “buckle”, nor a macaroni necklace.
- And those numerous place-mats each child brought home from elementary school? You know, where they made turkeys out of the outlines of their little hands? Yes, of course I still have them in a box somewhere, but we used a real tablecloth instead.
- When I started singing “Any Turkey Can Tango”–just the cutest little turkey-themed ditty ever, trust me–no one joined in.
- Taste buds have matured, so I added mushrooms to a few dishes and I used “exotic” spices like ginger and nutmeg in the pumpkin pie.
- I demanded assistance with cooking, because now my offspring are old enough to be careful with hot ovens and knives. No salve was needed, no blood was shed.
- I demanded assistance with clean-up, since now I can trust my offspring to dry the crystal stemware without dropping any. (Husband, however, is another story. He broke one of my cordial glasses.)
- We watched the Macy’s Parade in surround-sound and in high-definition on a big-ass TV screen.
- While watching the parade, some family members provided rude and irreverent commentary about the balloons and the performers and the floats. (OK, so the lip-syncing was pretty bad, but don’t go dissing the Pillsbury Doughboy!)
- Oldest Son was not with us, but instead was celebrating 400 miles away with the lovely family of his lovely significant-other.
- No one was interested in perusing the Black Friday circular from Toys R Us.
- The cider we enjoyed with our dessert was not the type of cider you can legally offer to kids. Cheers!
Monica Lists 