Thanksgiving Countdown, episode 4.

Welcome back to the countdown! Today's installment comes from my coworker Nathan, author of the very funny Talkaholics Anonymous, home of the *tangent* blogging method.

*Tangent*

Nathan is so on the ball - he was the first person to send me the full text to his post. Punctual!

*End Tangent*

Enjoy his musings on childhood holidays.

Welcome, Nathan!

As the last of nine children, I was a little spoiled. However, when I was 13, my eyes were opened to an entirely new (and higher) echelon of excessive spending when my family was invited to this rich family's cabin for Thanksgiving dinner.

It was up in the mountains and snow was everywhere. As we pulled into their driveway, we were greeted with five garages all filled with snowmobiles and other "toys." Inside, there was an entire wing of the house filled with bedrooms and bathrooms for the 283 guests these people evidently needed to house at any given moment (I may have exaggerated that number a little).

There were media rooms and game rooms and rooms set aside for displaying antiques. The view spanned the entire valley, and in another wing, I met my first indoor pool.

However, the icing on the cake was at dinner. When one of the baskets of rolls came to me, I discovered it wasn't just any old basket. It was an antique Native American basket from one of the original local tribes.

It would be an understatement to say I felt awkward and out of place. It made me appreciate my own family traditions during Thanksgiving. Looking around at all the beautiful things, they seemed to get in the way of just being together. While my family doesn't have a specific traditional activity each year, we always spend time together, and that is what is important.