Process Essay

     Thanksgiving in my house is always a complicated event. The planning of such is a battle between my mother and I. She wishes to have a "modern and fun" Thanksgiving while I prefer a "simple and traditional" Thanksgiving. My father avoids adding his opinion at all costs. Ultimately, he agrees with me but to choose a side would be an all out Arias Household War. We have three steps to planning Thanksgiving. It sounds easy enough but in reality, it is stressful and irritating.
   We always start off with how many guests we will want to invite. This year, I want to invite some of the friends that I have made that are not from our country. My friends have expressed interest in American holidays and I wish to help them experience each one as much as possible. This would put a maximum of 12 people on my house. My house is big enough to accommodate such a number so that isn't a big issue. My mother's idea of Thanksgiving is just the 4 of us. Needless to say, we are already at a disagreement. I am hoping that we can come to a compromise, which is a lot easier to do with the number of guests rather than what we will eat.
     As I said before, I like a traditional thanksgiving with turkey, cranberry sauce, pies, green bean casserole, the works. My father is a big fan of this also, and especially loves pumpkin pie to eat for dessert. My mother is a completely different story. She hasn't indicated what she wants to do this year but last year she wanted to have a seafood thanksgiving. Crabs, lobster, shrimp, fish and whatever you can make out of them. I love seafood but not for Thanksgiving; it doesn't even sound right to me. In the end, I won out and got my traditional Thanksgiving but I worry that this year she will come up with something ridiculous like having a tofu turkey. The decision on how much to make always revolves around how many people we have and the recipes we want to make.
     My brother and his girlfriend came to visit last year along with my boyfriend at the time and his son so we had a full house. It was absolutely fantastic. I loved having my loved one surround me. It was rarely quiet and someone was always laughing. It felt very cozy and warm. We ended up with a huge turkey that we got on sale and the staples for making a traditional dinner plus some extra recipes that we decided we wanted to make. It was too much food, in retro spec, but at the time we believed we would need it since we had so many people in the house. I was able to cook the turkey but my mother held her ground with every other dish. She wouldn't let me into the kitchen unless I was checking my turkey and even then she made sure I touched nothing else. If I happened to stir the gravy or taste the stuffing, I was hit with a wooden spoon. This year, I am hoping to be able to make a few more dishes and the turkey. However, with the memory of those hits, I am not sure how long I will be able to hold my ground.
     Thanksgiving is a fun event in my house, despite the preparation stress. Once everything is all said and done and the meal is complete, everyone clambers around the dining room table to fill their plates and then we move off to the living room to watch football. The dogs get scraps that fall, and the cats often get bits of turkey. Gabriel moves from plate to plate, taking spoonfuls of this or that. It's too early to tell how this Thanksgiving will go but I know that, no matter what, I will be able to look forward to sitting together and creating new memories.