Carol’s Diary: Thanksgiving 1995

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was kind of amazing. I took Mark to my families gathering at my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Hal’s house. We have a tradition every year that after we finish gorging ourselves on turkey and pie, we play a game called Chase the Ace. I LOVE this game. I don’t know exactly what it is that I love so much about it but I do. I think maybe it’s just gathering everyone around to laugh and have fun. I have a feeling that if our traditional game was kick the can, I would still love doing it with my family.

Games

In this game, you have the choice to trade your card with the person to your left. You want to end up with the highest card possible because the lowest card pays. If you have a King, which is the high card,
and the player to your right tries to trade with you, you flip over your Kind and they are stuck with whatever card it is they were trying to trade. The Ace is the lowest and a guaranteed loss. So when you see a card moving quickly from one person to the next around the table, it’s a decent guess that the
card is an Ace. That’s why it’s called Chase the Ace.

The Parade

I watched the Macy’s 70th Thanksgiving Parade on TV with my niece’s and nephew. It was so much fun. They did a performance of “Getting to Know You” from The King and I, which was my favorite.
They also did “Pure Imagination” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the kids favorite. The float was surrounded by umpa loompas. That part I did not like. They are some creepy little weird o’s. In the movie, they seem kind of evil and demonic. One of the highlights was Vanessa Williams
performing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”. I bet the Detroit parade doesn’t have anyone that awesome performing. My brother actually wanted me to take the kiddos downtown for the parade. Does he
know how cold it is out there? I checked… average temperature was 27.6 degrees. No thank you, not happening.

Lions Lose

Some of the guys actually watched the football game so I, unfortunately, had to hear it in the background
from time to time. Football is so boring! However, the Lions didn’t get beat quite as badly as usual. The Kansas City Chiefs won 28 to 24 so it sounds like it was a decent game. Sometimes, with the Lions, it’s almost embarrassing.

Evening Movie

Mark had me watch “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” for the first time. He insists that this is truly a Thanksgiving movie because the guys are trying to get home for Thanksgiving. However, most of the
movie is a road trip, not related to a holiday at all, so I would say it is only tangentially related. Either way, I did like it. It was full of craziness and hilarity as one would expect from Steve Martin and John
Candy.

Mark convinced me to watch it because it was directed by John Hughes. I cannot argue his point. I do pretty much love everything John Hughes touches. I would have felt sorry for John Candy’s character, when he had that incident with the rental car and his cigarette butt. A similar thing happened to me but I did catch it WAY sooner. However, how can you feel bad for the man who stole Steve Martin’s credit card to pay for it?!? It’s cute that at the end the guys become friends but I think
that in real life, one of them would have killed the other, or they both would have ended up in jail.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year too! Gobble Gobble