THANKSGIVING in the Bay Area

For a few days now I have been in the SF Bay Area, celebrating the Holiday with my friends and family. In fact for awhile now I have been celebrating Thanksgiving more than just once during the Holiday Season. As for the past few years we have been having two separate family Thanksgivings on Thanksgiving and the next day, Friday. One with the white or step side of the family, and another one with members from my Father's, or the black side of the family. Initially I enjoyed the
1st more traditional Thanksgiving with my step Mother, brother, step brother, his two kids, his wife, her grandfather, mother, step father and sometimes his two daughters, more than the 2nd Thanksgiving. Which takes place on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and involves my aunt, her two daughters/my cousins, her new husband, and various family friends. But more and more I have come to enjoy the second Thanksgiving with my cousins, since my step sister in law just seems to be a really fake and superficial person, or is becoming so more and more. So much more in fact, that it has reached the point where I do not really trust anything she has to say, nor what she has to say to me. Especially after her young son repeated some stuff to me that my step sister-in-law her and her husband have been saying about me behind my back ( apparently for years). But such is the normal dysfunctional nature of the modern blended family I guess.


Still it is enough to make me have second thoughts about even joining that side of the family for Thanksgiving, even more so after I found out that Thanksgiving this year would take place in a restaurant instead of at someones house. Which just bummed the hell out of me, as Thanksgiving really should involve family and a home cooked meal. Plus I just didn't like the idea of paying for a meal that was in essence not all you can eat, as all Thanksgivings essentially are. But I ended up going to Thanksgiving with my family after all, mainly because my brother was freaking out about me not going and actually getting upset. And to be quite honest the food was not actually all that bad, and the evening as a whole was not as bad as I thought or imagined it would be. Though it definitely was a very short evening, as he had 5:30pm reservations, and were out of the restaurant by 8pm, which is kind of a record for us.