Thanksgiving 2024

After skipping to Myrtle Beach for Thanksgiving last year, we celebrated back in Spokane this year. As always, we enjoyed a special and warm holiday.

Our family during Thanksgiving 2024.

I started my Thanksgiving with an early morning workout at Snap Fitness. I always joke that I need the exercise so I can burn 200 calories only to consume 20,000 calories hours later. I guess other people recognized my absurdity because I had the whole gym to myself.

A photo I took of an empty Snap Fitness gym on an early Thanksgiving morning.

After the conclusion of my workout, I hustled home and cued up the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Sure, we could have watched the tape-delayed NBC broadcast when it came on at 8:30 a.m. PT on the west coast, but we are a little obsessive. Sid, Sloan, Beau, and I jammed in our bed as we streamed the parade live on Peacock right when it started at 5:30 a.m.

Beau holds his stuffed Spider-Man as the actual Macy’s Parade Spider-Man float goes by.

Our next Thanksgiving activity took place at the movie theater. My family met my sister’s family at the Spokane Valley Regal Cinemas for the 11:15 a.m. showing of “Moana 2.” Even though my kids love the film and Sloan even dressed up as Moana for Halloween one year, I had never seen the original movie until last night. Yep, I made sure to do my last-minute homework by watching “Moana” on Wednesday evening. The cram session prepared me well as I was able to enjoy “Moana 2” just as much as everyone else in the packed theater.

Four happy kids after watching “Moana 2.”

From the theater we drove out to my parents’ house in north Spokane. My dad and I watched some of the Cowboys-Giants game and then my sister’s family, my family, and parents enjoyed each other’s company for the duration of the afternoon/evening. Our Thanksgiving meal was delicious as I eclipsed the 200 calories I burned from earlier after my second bite.

Eating Thanksgiving dinner. Delicious!

Once we finished eating, we all moved into the living room where we spent the rest of the night talking and eating dessert. My parents have a single TV in the house that is exiled in the basement, so our family holidays are always centered around conversation which I wouldn’t have any other way. My choice of dessert was pumpkin pie!

Sloan, Beau, and their cousins doing Thanksgiving crafts while the adults visit.

We left my parents’ at 8 p.m. and then before making the 34-minute drive home, we drove by the infamous “Disney holiday house.” It is even better this year than ever before. We made it home around 9 p.m. and went to bed feeling really thankful.

We made a stop at the Spokane Disney house to cap off our Thanksgiving.

I hope you had a satisfying Thanksgiving as well. Can’t write it enough—I am very grateful for my readers. Don’t Blink.