The Quiet After

The house is quiet. Gone are the visitors who descended upon our home this past weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving.  The arrivals began a week ago, on Tuesday, and continued until all twenty-four family members were present by Wednesday evening. This is our second go-around at having everyone down for the holiday and will continue until everyone has decided that they no longer want to carry on this new tradition. 

Of the twenty-four people who came for the weekend, twenty stayed at our house. Our five bedrooms were filled to the brim with friends and family. (Two of the twenty-four people were Josh's friends from college who live in Norway and Sweden.)

While I do enjoy having everyone down, I always have immense anxiety in the weeks leading up to everyone arriving. It isn't necessarily the people who are coming that make my nerves fray, but just the sheer number of them.  It always ends up being fine once everyone has arrived, and I end up wondering why my body reacts the way it does in the weeks preceding family coming. 

Thanksgiving itself was everything a good family affair should be. It was full of good food, good people, and good times. It was loud and chaotic with kids running around the house in all directions, but it was nice to hear cousins laugh and play together. 

Of course, no family gathering is ever perfect, and there were some hiccups in our days together, but we managed to move beyond those as a family. 

After several days of being all together, everyone left by Sunday night around 7 pm.  As nice as it was to have everyone together, it was just as nice to have the usual quiet of my house back again. I took Monday off with Elizabeth to just relax (with the exception of straightening up the house). Today, we began to do the loads and loads of laundry that need to be done - which consists of primarily sheets and blankets from the many, many beds that were needed to accommodate everyone. Once the laundry is done, I will be deep cleaning the house - wiping off fingerprints from the walls, crayon marks found here and there, and just the general stuff that needs to be done to get a house back together after having a large group of people around for multiple days. 

We expect to have everyone back to the house sometime in July to celebrate 4th of July. I enjoy having everyone at the house (despite the anxiety that precedes each visit) twice a year. Even more than that I am really excited about the traditions we are beginning to build in having everyone come down together at set points during the year.  

In the meantime, I am enjoying the quiet that comes after the gathering is done.