1. What are you doing for Thanksgiving this year? Are you staying local or going afar?
I think that this year I am going to be heading to Bishop, CA with a bunch of other climbers. Missy is heading home to Indiana so this seemed like a good alternative.

It is still up in the air as the person I was supposed to go with on Wednesday (and split the driving) decided that he wanted to go up tomorrow instead. So I'm still trying to figure out driving arrangements -- but thats the plan so far.

2. Do you like the winter holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas)? Why/why not?
I could do without Thanksgiving -- I mean sure -- the idea behind it is great. And getting time off from work for any reason is good enough for me. But it seems like as an American we have lost sight of what the holiday originaly was all about.

Christmas however, is quite fun. I enjoy giving preasents and seeing pleasure on other peoples faces as they receive them. And I enjoy getting preasents of course (duh). While Missy doesn't like the music, I do enjoy it -- mostly because it's fun to perform and re-arrange it.

3. Do you think the holidays are superficial? Do they really mean anything anymore?
It depends on the person -- I think that you can get a lot out of the holidays if you put forth the effort. However effort is not something that you can buy at your local mall no matter what they advertise.
Have holiday's become too commercial? I think so.
Is that something that can be avoided? Deffinately -- just don't fall for the commercial traps!

Bonus Question for Comments: What did you do for Thanksgiving as a kid?
It depended on where we were living. When we lived in Southern California we would always go visit my grandparents that lived in the Santa Ynez Valley. They would have a large family dinner followed by huge games of Uno (imagine 20 adults playing uno after drinking wine and having lots of turkey -- us kids almost always won!).

When we lived in Oregon we would go visit my Great Grandparents who lived near Gold Hill, Or. A fiest would be had with all home grown vegetables and a ham. The thing I remember most about those trips was the pancakes the next morning -- corn pancakes. We would go pick the corn from the garden and the go inside to cut it up. Using whole kernels of corn mixed into the batter added a great natural sweetness -- they were nummy! This was always followed by gold panning in the river that ran by their house.