Holidays and Hospitals

For those of you who didn't know, last Christmas didn't go too well. The greatest Christmas gift we recieved was an answer for the week and a half of supersonic migraines Courtney was having. Unfortunately the answer itself was viral meningitis, as we found out when the meninges-swelling symptoms peaked the night before Christmas, and Courtney and I spent the next day and a half in a Twin Falls hospital room. But that all ended and we were in good shape after that.
This Thanksgiving we celebrate yet another holiday from the confines of a hospital-this time in the maternity ward. Our little girl was born the day before Thanksgiving, and we're all in here until after dinner (only because we'd rather not leave at 4:00AM Friday morning, when our time is up). She is adorable. We are so thankful for our family and for the fine health care professionals who spend their holidays in hospitals to make things better for people like us. And we are thankful for our bundle of Thanksgiving joy (and that she does not look like a turkey like my brother did when he was born on Thanksgiving Day 20 years ago).

Another Day to Celebrate America

I heard that the average American will eat 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving day. How else could we possibly celebrate a day of thanks but through gluttany? As Jim Gaffigan put it,

"Thanksgiving, we didn't even try to come up with a tradition; the tradition is we overeat. 'Hey, how 'bout for thanksgiving we just eat a lot?' We do that every day. 'Oh...what if we eat a lot with people who annoy the hell out of us?'"

And eating with family makes many Americans more thankful for their independence from family. And what's the last peice of the puzzle? Beating the crap out of people: football. We watch football, we play football, we talk football--football is the day. These are the founding principles of our nation- independence, gluttany and explosive entertainment. Definitely a perfect fit as a national holiday in our blessed football.

So let's express our American patronage by eating, fighting and tackling this weekend. Such is the spirit of the day, and the spirit of our country.