10 Things That are Inevitable this Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is only two days away and the inevitable Thanksgiving happenings are, well, happening. These are the things you can expect every year, whether you like them or not. They’re traditions even though many of them aren’t on the family schedule.

Let’s go off topic for a while to explore the the things we can expect this year, and every year.

10 Things That are Inevitable This Thanksgiving

1. Airport Updates: Each year reporters converge on their local airports to report about how crowded the airports are. Of course they’re crowded. It’s Thanksgiving and everyone is flying home. If it’s the same thing every year, and if you report on it every year, it’s not news. I ask you, does this make a compelling interview:

News person: Hello. What are you doing here today?

Person in airport: I’m flying home.

News person: Why are you flying home this weekend when it’s so crowded?

Person in airport: Umm…because it’s Thanksgiving?

News person: Fascinating.

It’s almost as brilliant at the reports from Home Depot during snow storms to say people are buying snow shovels and rock salt.

2. “Why I’m Thankful” Posts: If you’re an American blogger, you probably already wrote your “thankful” post. Mine is ready to go too. I have lots of reasons to be thankful and I’m sure you do too.

3. Bad TV: There’s a reason I stay away from Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel at this time of the year. Predictable holiday movies. If they’re not variations of a Christmas Carol they’re filled with depressed people looking for their will to live.

4. Traffic on the BQE: So I’ll be traveling to Queens this year as I do every year to partake in holiday cheer with the inlaws. I don’t look forward to the holiday traffic on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. In case you’re not familiar with the BQE, there is always construction happening. Always. Not sure why they can never get it fixed for once and for all but I’ve been commuting back and forth to New York City for the past 30 years and nothing has changed.

5. Leftovers: Admit it. You want to host Thanksgiving so you can keep most of the leftovers. Is there anything better than after your guests leave and you have that cold turkey and mayo sandwich? Thanksgiving leftovers rock.

6. Not Enough Leftovers: If you’re like me and don’t usually host Thanksgiving, your mother in law may send you home with some leftovers, but it’s never enough. It’s even worse if your husband gets to it before you do. One turkey sandwich and it’s gone. Sometimes I host a second small Thanksgiving dinner on the weekend so I can have more leftovers enjoy hosting duties too.

7. Football: I despise football, yet every year on Thanksgiving I have to sit through a day of football because that’s what everyone else is doing.

Let me weight this out: Football…Hallmark Channel. Football….Lifetime. I’m bringing a book.

8. The Diet that Wasn’t: Every year we pile food on our plates and say, “I’ll work out harder tomorrow.” or “I’ll diet tomorrow to make up for this,” and never do.

9. Black Friday: I don’t get it. I do everything I can to avoid crowded malls during the holidays and some people willingly wake at 3:00 a.m. to get to the stores to fight over Cabbage Patch Dolls and video games. I don’t find this to be a fun or productive use of my time and will gladly pay more money to stay away from all that.

10. Good Intentions: I have good intentions every Thanksgiving weekend. I say I’m going to work ahead of time and I don’t. I say I’m going to take the weekend off, and I don’t.

What are your Thanksgiving inevitables?