Journal Stories.

It's Sunday night of Thanksgiving weekend and I'm sitting in the living room looking at the Christmas tree. It's fully decorated and equipped with bright LED lights for the first time this year. They give off a nice blue glow instead of the pinkish glow the old ones did, and they use 88% less energy than the others, which is nice. Underneath the tree is still barren, but that'll change soon enough.

Amanda's sitting here doing homework, getting geared up for the end of the semester, and I've got Sunday Night Football playing in the background on the tv. While it's still technically November, the surf is heading out to sea for the tidal wave of good cheer and love that Christmas will bring in a few weeks (quite an analogy, eh? Glad ya liked it).

That being said, I've given you a list of things that I'm thankful for, and of course, I could have written a lot more, but instead, I want to share with you an abbreviated version of some of the stories my Grandma told us the other night. They're always great to listen to, and I wrote them down in my journal to save them somewhere concrete.

I'm not going to elaborate on these stories right now. What I'm going to do is type out the EXACT entry from my journal from the night before Thanksgiving. Keep in mind that it was late, I'd had a glass of wine or two, and I was tired. I didn't feel like writing, but I had to get it on paper, because it felt good and made me happy. My parents and sis were in the room, and some movie was on TV, but I scribbled away for a few minutes. Here we go:

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11/25/09

In Gastonia. Grandma just went to bed, but we're here for Thanksgiving & she told us lots of cool stories tonight. She and Granddaddy have (had) been to ALL seven continents. They've basically set foot on every major land mass in the world. So cool! She talked about how they crossed paths with Patton's son, & how he called Grandaddy "Doc," and told him to call him "George." Also, they went to Russia, lost their luggage, and she had to get a peasant's outfit in a "dollar" store in Leningrad. She also talked about how she had one of the most spiritual experiences of her life on a boat to Antarctica with the Chaplin & Dr. while a major storm was going on around them. We're talkin' waves above their boat.

It was so cool hearing her stories. Grandma could seriously have a "Forest Gump"-type movie made about her. 92. 4'10". Strong. Definitely wanna be as strong as her when I grow up.

And speaking of that, I wonder how she sees me & the cousins. She obviously saw her kids grow up, but we're the next generation. Does she see us as her little grand kids or young adults? Both, I'm pretty sure. It's interesting to watch the perspectives and think about their differences.

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So there you have it. A short concrete version of what I heard the other night. I know it's more of a teaser, and I could totally elaborate (which I might later...I really DO come back when I say "I'll do it later" sometimes), but for now I wanna keep it raw, like the cursive in my journal.

Hope you enjoyed it, and while there's one more day of November, I also hope that you get excited for Christmas as the spirit starts stirring in the coming weeks. Goodnight for now.

D.