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Tuesday, December 3, 2013

thanksgivukkah

Thankgivukkah! 
This year was a special year. Thanksgiving & Chanukah happened to overlap one another, which meant that rather than celebrating just one holiday, I got to celebrate two. The University of Michigan enjoys giving their students the shortest breaks known to mankind (how considerate of them, right?). Technically, we only get Thanksgiving Thursday and the following Friday off, but I took the liberty of extending my break by missing three days of classes. I left school Monday afternoon and was home sweet home that night.

Usually, my family's thanksgiving is at my aunt's house in Michigan. Before I went away to college this was totally fine with me, but now that I'm in Michigan for most of the year I want to be home in Chicago for my breaks so I can sleep in my own bed and see my friends. Last year was the first year I can remember that I haven't spent thanksgiving with my maternal grandparents and mom's sisters family. It was fine, but it wasn't the same and my family missed being together because that had always been our tradition.
My cousins, my brother, my grandparents & I

So this year we had Thanksgiving at my house. Next year, to be fair, we're going to spend Thanksgiving in Michigan and then switch off every other year. As much as I'd love Thanksgiving to be at my own house every year, I get why it's fair to change it every year so that everyone gets to spend time with their friends at home/sleep in their own beds during the break.

Needless to say we were all super excited about Thanksgivukkah (the coined term for the mixed American/Jewish holidays) because who doesn't want to eat turkey and latkes in the same meal?! The meal was absolutely AMAZING, DELICIOUS and 5-STAR RESTAURANT WORTHY. I was full after eating only appetizers (which were spinach-artichoke dip with baked crackers, my mom's famous baked salami & cranberry brie). This was the first Thanksgiving that I've worn jeans and let me tell you it was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. 5 minutes in to dinner I thought the seams were going to burst and I was feeling constricted and uncomfortable. Granted, I just kept eating because everything tasted like heaven, but I'm 100% wearing leggings next year.

Dessert table that put me in a food coma...
Dinner consisted of a 25 lb turkey, matzah stuffing, cranberry slices, this amazing rice/noodle dish, kugel, brussel sprouts topped with pine nuts, plain and sweet potato latkes, carrot soufflé, corn soufflé, my Mimi Lynne's famous strawberry jell-o and an amazing kale salad with corn, pomegranate seeds and cornbread croutons. I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but those are all the things I had on my plate (stop judging me). After I ate I laid on the floor for a solid 45 minutes to try to digest my food, and because I was so full I was having trouble breathing. I thought I was in the clear until my mom started setting up dessert. I should have just saved some dessert in the fridge for the next day, but I decided to be ambitious and ate a frosting filled vanilla cupcake, a slice of apple pie and a mini lemon-raspberry bunt cake. Full disclosure, I was so full & sick to my stomach from eating so much that I sat in a warm bath for 30 minutes because I felt like I was going to combust.

half of our shopping bags


I passed out by 9:30 because I was in a major food coma and woke up on Black Friday at 5:30am ready to shop. We decided to go the Fashion Outlets of Chicago (I've written about them in a previous post) because they have a lot of good shops that would be even cheaper on this day because of all the sales. We were at the mall from 7:00am to 2:00pm… I've never shopped so much in my life. We went to Tory Burch, Vince Camuto, Vince, All Saints, Saks, Forever 21, Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus and a couple of other random stores. The amount of stuff we bought is embarrassing, but in our defense everything we got was for a really price because it was on sale and/or at a discounted price!


My dog Blue :)
In conclusion, my Thanksgivukkah consisted of eating way too much, shopping way too much, cuddling with my dog who I'm allergic to way too much and doing way too much of absolutely nothing but hanging out with my family who I'm very thankful for. I hope everyone had a meaningful and relaxing Thanksgiving, and for fellow members of the tribe I hope your Thanksgivukkah experience was memorable!