Thanksgiving 2017

I wasn't too thrilled going into Thanksgiving this year. I feel like our holidays have gotten a bit topsy-turvy in the past couple years. I find myself missing spending Thanksgiving with the family we used to see, missing my brother, missing feelings it seems I'll never get back.

In either case, we weren't sure what we were doing up till the last minute. At one point, we were going to be spending the majority of the day at my grandpa's, but then Francisco threw a wrench in those plans. Since we'd met up with his dad's side of the family a few years ago [here is a recap of our last visit], we regularly talk about them and how we'd like to see them more often. It seems like we'd been having more of those conversations lately, so I volunteered to reach out to Francisco's cousin Missy on Facebook to see about getting Grandma Yolanda's number. Francisco had actually sent his aunt Gina and uncle Juan Pablo an email the week prior, but he hadn't heard anything back, so he wasn't sure on what steps he should take next. I thought it would be good for him to call and check in with his grandmother regardless. He called her and left a voicemail, but he didn't end up hearing back until Wednesday evening. He mentioned we would be in the area for the holiday, and I think word ended up getting back to Juan Pablo and Gina who called and expressed their enthusiasm to have us over for Thanksgiving.

I woke up Thanksgiving morning, and we tried to figure out what our plan was. I was still hoping to make it to my grandpa's, but the reality was we had a 5-hour drive to get to Glenview, and my Grandpa lives an hour away from there (back the direction we would be coming from). We made surprisingly good time and pulled up to Glenview before our anticipated 12:30-1 arrival.

Francisco and Grandma Yolanda selfie

Here we got to hear the other side of the story. In that Grandma Yolanda blocked Francisco's number when he called since she didn't recognize it, but then wondered 'what if that was Panchis?' [Panchis is what his dad's side of the family calls him.] Eventually, some of the dots were connected between Missy, Gina, Juan Pablo, and Grandma Yolanda, which prompted her to call him back and ended with an invitation to Thanksgiving. Confusing enough?

More family started arriving, and it was so great to see everyone. We had brought our photo album from our trip to Chile and Antarctica to share since that's actually where we first met cousin Catalina and the last time we'd seen Grandpa Poncho before he passed away. Before we'd even showed him, his cousin asked if we had brought a photo book [we'd brought our Egypt album last time since Francisco's family used to live there.]

Y'all, it was an even better time than I'd anticipated. I loved catching up with everyone on what we've been doing since we last seen them. The food was even better than we thought lol! I only say that because last minute vegetarians dropping in for Thanksgiving...well, you can see how that might have limited our options. But his cousin Cha Cha is actually a vegan, so we could eat nearly everything at the table without issue.  There were a couple of traditional Chilean dishes that we still need to get the recipes for.

We were having such a great time, that we stayed much later than we intended and weren't able to make it to my grandpa's. I felt bad about this, but I don't regret spending our holiday with this family. In fact, we're thinking this might just need to be our new tradition.

We would usually spend it with Francisco's immediate family, but it seems like everyone has been doing their own thing the past couple of years. I guess that just happens, and the holidays evolve as people grow up, but I sometimes find it difficult to deal with change and it just bums me out. Last year, we stayed home and didn't see any family at all, and it left me feeling really sad. I definitely wanted to change that this year, and I'd even reached out to my cousin to see about getting together with her while I was in the area. Unfortunately, she had to work all weekend. I was going to try to squeeze in the time to drop in on her Thanksgiving gathering, but I'm glad I didn't commit to this since we ended up having not nearly enough time for half the things we wanted to do on Thursday.

We spent much of the day on Friday with my parents, just hanging out and having a game day.  We still made it to my grandpa's - just a day late. I was happy to see him doing much better, and I know he's thrilled to not be stuck in a hospital anymore after spending too many weeks there for some issues with his heart.

After visiting grandpa, we hit the road back home. We put the tree up and finished decorating for Christmas. In this house, that just means trouble!