Ruminations on Tryptophan... Gobble Gobble

Yes. I have done it. Yes. I have managed to eat no more than a regular (if large) dinner at Thanksgiving. Yes. Praise me, for I had:

- Three small slices of dark meat turkey
- Two, maybe two and a half cups of brussels sprouts, I don't even know, that recipe is good
- A small serving of almond green beans
- A cup of stuffing, or if I'm being brutally honest, two
- Lots of gravy, I have no idea, best gravy ever
- Water (!!!)
- NO PIE. NONE. NO PIE. NOT EVEN A TINY PIECE.

Someone brought up tryptophan, because I haven't been sleeping, and I said that you have to eat over a dozen turkeys in an hour to pass out from eating tryptophan, which is true, and uncle said that I must be wrong because every Thanksgiving he feels the effects, and everyone laughed behind their hands a little and aunt confirmed that uncle falls asleep after eating large burgers. And after dessert other uncle joked that he looked this big because he'd just eaten a lot of food and not because he was fat and cousin laughed with him and at him!

And we did the Christmas gift draw, which has a dollar limit and tells you who you buy for this year because otherwise everyone would have to buy presents for everyone else and weather the resulting emotional backgammon and nobody wants that, so we all buy gift cards, and other aunt drew Husband and relative was like, "Uh oh, should we change it?" and I said, "What?" and she said, "Never mind," so that's obviously OK!

And there were no shame sessions! Except for everyone taking jabs at an uncle who gets ribbed on a lot, and at an aunt because she's kind of OCD as well as more successful than any one of her relatives could ever be and apart from during the ride home in the car, and those other tiny incidents (but those we're ignoring because nibbles don't count towards daily calories)!

I stayed up into the wee hours in a guest room with a wrought-iron day bed that screams at you when you lie down, watching Black Friday advertising with intermittent reality television programming hidden underneath, and I discovered that you can order Black Friday deals over the internet.

What's up with that, America? Isn't the point that camping outside a chain store in freezing rain and snow to get to the doors at 4 am or whatever shows your rabid commitment to buying some cousin you've met twice in your entire life a ten dollar shaving set for Christmas and leaving the original sixty dollar price tag still attached? Or buying a CD to put in your five-dollar-limit office White Elephant just so you can be the smug bastard who can guilt trip that poor schmuck who entered the beer can sleeve?

I have just eaten a mini dinner roll smeared generously with gravy. It was worth it.