Joey had reasons. They were threefold.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which is my favorite holiday, YES EVEN MORE FAVORITE THAN CHRISTMAS. Thanksgiving is an excuse for sloth and gluttony, which are two of my favorite vices, and, yeah, you can eat a lot and sleep a lot on Christmas but there's so much PRESSURE at Christmastime. You have to buy the right gifts and make sure you spend time with all of your friends and family, and there's usually some work-related holiday function you have to attend and when, WHEN I ASK YOU, is the free time at Christmas? There's no such thing.

Not Thanksgiving, though. Sure, you might have to make several stops on your Thanksgiving journey, but there's delicious food at all of them. It's what the Pilgrims always dreamed of. I think. Right? Wasn't that was the point of the first Thanksgiving? Eating and drinking a lot? And being really smelly?

And so, in honor of America's laziest holiday, I present...A LIST. My top five Thanksgivings, in no particular order:

1. The Shrinking Table

Back when I was in high school, I think, we went to Thanksgiving at my Grandma's, because TRADITION. My cousins were all very wee and I spent most of my time chasing them around my Grandma's house until one or all of us got tired. In a brief moment of rest, I was sitting at a large folding table with my dad when my cousin Josh, then four or so, came in. He walked out of the room, and I don't know how this came about, but my dad and I decided to fold up the table we were sitting at and set up a slightly smaller one. When Josh came back in, he was amazed! The table had shrunk! What sorcery was this?!

He left again, we folded up that table, and replaced it with a slightly smaller one. Josh came back in and was all, "wtf," but, you know, in four-year-old-speak, and I told him Casper had come in and was sprinkling shrinking powder on everything. Which maybe traumatized him for life but we're not sure yet. Josh left again, we replaced that table with a TV tray, Josh came in and saw it, left to look for Casper, and when he came back in, we'd put the TV tray away and told Josh that the table finally got so small that we couldn't see it anymore. It was awesome.

Also, I just remembered that this might have also happened on Christmas, not Thanksgiving. THIS LIST IS RUINED ALREADY.

2. The First Thanksgiving (with Joe)

I'm not talking about actual Thanksgiving, when our schedule was thus: I went to my family's Thanksgiving, he went to his family's, I went over to his family's for dessert, we both went back to MY family's for dessert...I mean, wtf, that is crazy, which is why now we alternate Thanksgiving holidays with our families. Last year, we spent Thanksgiving with my family, this year we spend it with his family, and so on and so on forever and ever.

I'm talking about the next day, when we consolidated all of the Thanksgiving leftovers our parents had given us, with a trip to the grocery store for extra mashed potatoes (probably), and rewarmed everything so we could eat another Thanksgiving dinner, in our pajamas, while watching It's Always Sunny or some other such nonsense. Perfect day, yes?

3. The Turkey Trot

Back in 2007, Heidi and I decided that the best way to start our Thanksgiving would obviously be to run five miles, because then there would be zero guilt about the 50 pounds of mashed potatoes we planned on eating later in the day. We "trained" for it and were at the starting line at 8am that frigid, rainy morning and, though we felt like dying several times during the race, we finished it. I wanted to wear my number for the rest of the day but eventually showered so I could spend Thanksgiving with my family, drinking wine and playing games and talking about my upcoming trip to DC because that was also the same year as:

4. Collective Thanksgiving!

This was not the first time I'd ever met anyone IRL after getting to know them online, and it wasn't the last time, but it was the most memorable. I don't even remember how exactly The Collective as a group came to be. Kat and I had been reading each other's blogs for quite a while, and I vaguely remember somehow stumbling across Heather Anne and Abigail's blogs, but I don't remember when we all stopped being Heather Anne and Kat and Abigail and Jennie and instead became a complete set.

I also can't remember whose idea it was to get together for Thanksgiving, but that person is a genius. I got up in the wee small hours of the morning on Black Friday, but it wasn't to go shopping, it was to drive to DC and meet some of the best people I've ever had the honor of knowing. There was something magical about that trip. We got to skip the "getting to know you" portion of IRL friendships because we already knew each other. We knew each other for years without ever having met. But, you know, I'm so glad we finally did meet, obviously. I mean, otherwise I would have missed Abigail and Heather Anne's version of the OK Go treadmill dance, and who other than Kat would ever make me a balloon animal and then tie it to a firecracker? THEY ARE THE GREETEST.

5. The One With Chandler in a Box

Yeah, I know I wasn't technically AT this Thanksgiving celebration but I watched it on TV and isn't that almost the same thing? YES.