Assignment 14- Will Gregory

Thanksgiving in my family is quite the ordeal. Every year we travel 3 hours due west to Philpot, Kentucky, a small farm town on the outskirts of Owensboro. It is in Philpot where my family and I reunites with the very large amount of relatives on my mothers side. My mother descends from a family of 5 and her parents both descend from families of 14 children, all from the same 2 parents. So yes, as you would assume, I have a good deal of second cousins, I believe the count is somewhere over 100. On Thanksgiving day, however, we leave the insane number of second cousins behind to be with our closest family. All 27 of my maternal grandparent’s children, grandchildren, and their spouses gather in their ranch style farm house to eat and spend the day together. We keep everything pretty traditional due to that part of my family being strongly catholic and strict on rules. Whilst it is traditional, we have so much fun. My cousins and I have competitions to see who can gain the most weight from the meal. I just so happen to hold the undisputed record at 9 whole pounds. We weigh ourselves directly before and after the meal and it honestly gets way too serious some times. The reason I did so well this year was due to the fact that I ate nothing and drank only water in the 36 hours preceding the meal. At the end of the day, however,  I’ve spent valuable time with the people I love and it remains as one of my favorite days of the year.