It is that time of year again....

"Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving,
when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at therestaurant,
but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant,
in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray andFasha the dog.
And livin' in the bell tower like that,
they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in.
Havin' all that room,seein' as how they took out all the pews,
they decided that they didn'thave to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in there,
and we decided it'd bea friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump.
So we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW microbus,
took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headedon toward the city dump.
Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the dump saying,
"Closed on Thanksgiving."
And we had never heard of a dumpclosed on Thanksgiving before,
and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage."
LYRICS - Alice's Restaurant

I have never known it to be any other way. I was born on Thanksgiving Day in 1971.
So the cooking, the eating, the traveling....it's always been all about me.
We never needed to have a family birthday gathering 'cause everyone brought their gifts and well-wishes to whatever sort of Thanksgiving gathering we had.
I am the only grandchild on either side of my family. Or, at least I was when I had living grandparents.
I am also, one would deduce, an only child.
So, basically, for my entire life, the period of time from Thanksgiving through New Year's Day has always been

ALL ABOUT ME.

Nowadays, it isn't really. And a part of me gets really down about that. That inner child, I reckon.
But by creating my own family and my own family traditions, I have found some ways to make sure I still get my props....but on the DL. (that's down-low, for those of you that do not run in the hip-hop laden circles that I run in...)