LaughAtlantis

As Thanksgiving approaches, I've realized something. I have weird favorite holidays.

I love Thanksgiving. There's no gift-giving pressure and there's pie. You have a nice meal and then you just sit. You might even nap. You get to see your family and then you're actually allowed to watch football and ignore them, go to sleep and ignore them, or unbutton your belt, read the paper, and ignore them.

I love the Fourth of July. When I was a kid our family would always go to my great-grandfather's house on Boot Pond in Plymouth and swim and have a big cookout. My brother and I would walk down the beach at South Pond and collect tiny little toads - hoppy-toads, we called them - and set them free at the end of the day. There was a dock at our section of the beach that you could jump off of, and you could see guppies and other fish in the water. Those days defined the fourth of July for me, and even though we don't do anything like that anymore, I guess the memories bring out the best in the holiday for me.

Lastly, I love Christmas Eve. For the past several years, I have gone to my friend Jen's for Christmas Eve to celebrate with her Italian family. They do the full traditional dinner, which amounts to about a billion courses of fish. Jen's family members always remember things about me that shock me somewhat - they always bring up some tidbit of my life from the previous year that I have completely forgotten. Every year her grandmother asks me if I'm coming over on Christmas too, and I never have yet, but she always seems convinced that I've been there in previous years. Jen's cousin James is certifiable and her sister is... indefinable... and her dad looks like a mobster and her whole family is just lovely. It's just homey.

I don't know, I suppose the thing that ties all thes things together is that they are really family holidays - odd in that there is something of a disconnect within my family. My parents have been divorced for 13 years but we still all spend holidays togather, which has always seemed terribly odd and somewhat false to me. I guess all of these things have the air of togetherness and family - well, outside of Thanksgiving. And that has pie.