Cottle - Assignment 14

 During years that there isn't a global pandemic, Thanksgiving is a large event in my family; there's normally three different events with three different groups of people. We have Thanksgiving with my my mom's side of the family first on actual Thanksgiving. All my aunts, uncles, cousins, and other relatives and family friends gather at my grandparent's farm near Bowling Green. My grandma prepares a giant spread, more food than 30 some people could eat, and we all spend time together talking and catching up. My cousins are either a lot older or a lot younger than me, so I normally float between hanging out with my older cousins and the adults and babysitting the little ones. I love going to my grandparent's farm anytime, but it is especially special when everyone is together. Once we get home, we jump right back in with Thanksgiving on my dad's side. It's a much smaller event with just a few of us, but my cousin (who is my age) and I always go over to my grandmother's the night before to bake pies and prep for Thanksgiving. Every year our pies get more and more elaborate, I'm not sure how much better they can get! After Thanksgiving with that part of my family, we generally have Friendsgiving with close family friends and their kids the following weekend. 

Thanksgiving is so special to me mainly because I get to spend time with everyone that I love. Although Christmas is still my favorite (because of the music and the decorations), Thanksgiving is a close second. My strangest memory was about eight years ago, when my cousin brought her boyfriend and their friends with her to Thanksgiving at the farm. This itself wasn't too strange, it happened quite a bit, but they decided they wanted to play hide and seek. My little cousin was 2 at the time, and we were playing down in my room. Suddenly, one of them ran in and he gave us $5 to hide in our shower and tell my cousin that he wasn't in there. I was never super comfortable with these people anyway, so I immediately took my cousin upstairs and went to find my mom. It didn't stop there. Whenever we are all at my grandparent's, the adults and older teens all shoot rifles at hay bales and targets. While they were shooting, this same guy decided it would be a fabulous idea to jump off of the porch into directly in their line of fire. He was fine, no one was shooting at the time, but the idiocy still astounds me. Needless to say, they were not invited back.