I hope everybody had an excellent Thanksgiving and is enjoying the start of an awesome long weekend! David and I had a great, quiet holiday. We went and spent the day with his cousin and her husband, who just recently got released from the hospital after a devastating car accident; it was so nice to just hang out and swap stories and have a relaxing holiday with a few very cool people.
When we got home, we somehow ended up being invited over to our neighbor's Thanksgiving party. This would be strange enough on its own, but it's also important to understand that my neighborhood is 95% Latino and my neighbors speak only a little bit of English. I speak a little bit of Spanish, but I haven't had the occasion to use it in about six years and my vocabulary is pretty limited. Still, I made a valiant attempt, and they all seemed to find that incredibly endearing, so they invited us to a birthday party on Saturday. I suspect I may be part of the tamale assembly line by Christmas.
Anyway. That was fun and magical and reminded me of one of the things I really, really love about living in "the ghetto" here in Austin: the sense of community and friendliness.
So now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, today of course is America's favorite consumerist holiday: Black Friday. Needless to say, we're not participating. We never did, even when we were still buying things, and I don't foresee that changing much in the future. Tomorrow, however, is Small Business Saturday, and if I were buying things, I might be more tempted to partake in that.
On that topic, I found this interesting blog post about the moral dilemma of "buying local" vs "buying American" and how the two often do not intersect. Being a conscious consumer is harder than it might look at first glance.
So -- how 'bout you guys? Any fun Thanksgiving anecdotes to share? Did you try any Black Friday adventures or stay cozy at home?
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