Ah, Spring Cleaning!

Did I say "Spring Cleaning"? I meant "Thanksgiving Cleaning," of course! And my parent's Thanksgiving Cleaning, to be perfectly clear.

See, Thanksgiving is the only time my parents have more than immediate family over as guests. What can I say, they're people of extremes: no one, no one, no one, 50! So, of course, there's a year's worth (or more, depending on how thorough they have time to be...) of dirt to dispel, every time. Back in the day, most of my siblings didn't seem to like these few days before Thanksgiving, because Dad would enlist anyone he saw in the effort. Being the passive-agressive sort of people we are, we would hide in our rooms or other places. Often this would work because he wouldn't go out of his way to find people to help him, just get annoyed if he saw people not helping. Well, you know, with so many of us, who's to notice that a few kids have vanished? It wouldn't always work as well when everyone vanished at once...

I tended to like Thanksgiving Cleaning, though. Well, to some extent. It was still work. But first of all, it meant Thanksgiving was coming! Fun times. And besides, unlike most of the year when you were supposed to do chores, there would actually be people working with you! What a concept! Things would get cleaned so much faster...

So here we are. I'm 24 and married, and for the first time, I won't be spending Thanksgiving with my family. John and I are flying to Chicago to spend it with his. But, since I work in an office behind my parent's house, I get to be around the cleaning. I don't have to help, as I'm a grown adult with work to do, but I get to watch. And I find myself filled with nostalgia and warm fuzzies. It's Thanksgiving time!