Over the river and through the woods

When I was in elementary school, we used to have “theme music” for all the holidays. I guess singing kept us distracted and entertained. The Thanksgiving Music was “Over the River and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go; the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through white and drifted snow; over the river and through the woods, oh how the wind does blow! It stings the toes and bites the nose as over the ground we go.”

Okay, sounds good, but when I went to grandmother’s house we went in a car, not a horse-drawn sleigh over snow drifts. In fact, I’ve never been in a horse-drawn sleigh over snow drifts and this Thanksgiving the weather at home is rain and here at grandma’s house, it will be in the 70’s. So much for the song.

But the family is gathering in spite of that. I flew in yesterday after waking up at 2:30 am to get to the airport and off on a 6am flight. Ended up bumped from my connector flight because the little bitty plane was overweight with cargo. Since I saw this happen on multiple flights to multiple locations, it made me wonder why the paying passengers were always getting the short end of the stick or in our case, left behind in the airport to wait for another shot. I did finally arrive with a $250 voucher for travel on another future flight, which will be on a real plane and not one the size of a mosquito.

Today people arrived from two other places, my sister in law and niece from Houston and the car of college kids who drove for hours across Texas from Lubbock. Thursday morning my brother will come up, having finally agreed with us that trying to leave on Wednesday night after a long day was not the best idea.

The clan is gathering. We grocery shop, stocking up on what we think people will eat, but we know perfectly well that there will be at least one trip a day to the grocery store to get things we forgot or didn’t know that someone had to have. Today on my trip to get green onions, parsley and milk, I grabbed a bottle of water. That seems like an indulgence out here where people are drinking out of glasses but without a bottle, I simply don’t get my water. I’ve refilled it three times already from the tap, and where the water comes from isn’t the point. I simply know that I have to hold on to something and drinking my water is an absolute. Along with all the other good things about it (filling me up, good for my face, blah blah blah), it reminds me that I am deliberate about my choices and choosing to drink a bottle of water instead of a glass of wine is one of them.

I may not make all of the planned choices that I practiced. And if I don’t, I will not be a failure and will still move on and do whatever’s next. But I do know that drinking water is one way to make sure I can do that. What is the one anchor that you are hanging on to this year for the holiday?