Thanksgiving in Virginia

Thanksgiving can be a crazy time for anyone. Just ask my family...all six or seven branches on my dad's side.

I wouldn't trade it for the world, but it can get a little nuts sometimes. Last Thanksgiving that I was there, we had (and I counted) 26 people under one roof, in two rooms...and that was about half of the whole family. 

So if the whole family from Dad's side was there, that would make one grandfather, one great-aunt, my parents, give or take six uncles, six or seven aunts, about ten or eleven guy cousins,(in-laws are included) and maybe ten girl cousins. Then there's the babies, which currently number some four and a half (half being the ones that aren't born yet). And that's not counting myself and my sisters.

That's a lot of people.

That's a lot of awesome.

Last Thanksgiving, I woke up mid-morning and the whole house smelled like pie. When I went downstairs, there were already about six people in the kitchen running here and there. I went outside with my younger cousin, Ally, to get some fresh air. 

Nope.

Outside, in the chilly mountain air, one of my eldest cousins was standing with his lovely fiance (now wife) gutting a deer. That he'd shot that morning. That we ate with the turkey that night.

And it was perfectly normal!

I walk outside with my thirteen year old cousin to hear a man singing the Green Dragon song from Return of the King whilst skinning this animal he'd killed himself. Honestly, I thought it'd be a lot grosser to gut a deer, but he'd already taken the innards out, so it wasn't that bad. Ally and I spent a while helping clean it.

If that wasn't proof they were living in the Woods, how about this:

They had a mountain lion roaming the area: we cousins weren't supposed to go outside at night alone. As he's pulling the hide off what would later be dinner, my cousin starts talking to the woods: "Well, hello there, Mr. Mountain Lion. I know you're out there, probably watching us. This is my deer, but I know you're just going to get into the messy stuff I left behind anyway, so I'll pretend I left it there for you. Please don't eat my family."

Dinner that night consisted of Chaos, Love, Awesome Food, and six or seven girls all singing "The Girl Named Tennessee" over the table.

I love my family.