Day 24: Thanksgiving and Heroes

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I did. As usual I stuffed myself to a coma. I had to take a nap after eating.

This year's Thanksgiving meal was served at my step brother and sis-in-law's house. As you can see, they even put effort in the place setting and didn't go for the typical paper plates/plastic forks. We even had little pilgrim hats made out of cookies and chocolate covered marshmallows as party favors.

Let this be a lesson: Never go all out on holiday meals because your family will always want you to host it.
Lesson 2: Defrost a frozen pie the night before. I brought a frozen pie because it didn't defrost in time.

Another sort of tradition I have started on Thanksgiving is to watch CNN Heros. Every year, CNN honors ordinary citizens from around the world who make incredible sacrifices to help make a difference in the world. This year's winner is Anurdha Koirala, an Indian woman who started an organization that has helped rescue more than 12,000 women and girls from sex slavery.

For the past three Thanksgiving I have watched this event and it's a good thing I watch it alone because it always makes me ball my eyes out. I know, that is incredibly cheesy, but I just cant help it. Maybe it's because I've eaten too much, maybe it's because of that silver fox Anderson Cooper (he hosts the show). 

The stories are heartbreaking and inspiring and what I love most about them is how they help put things in perspective. Perspective is an amazing thing and it helps especially when you've had a bad day, a broken heart or are going through some other tragedy. One of the people honored this year is a man who spends his life removing land mines in Cambodia -- land mines he helped put in the ground when he was forced to be a child soldier. Now, doesn't getting yelled at by your boss, or getting dumped by your boyfriend or girlfriend pale in comparison to what other people in the world are going through? I guess what I'm saying is that it is almost selfish to spend time moping about your bad day. For me personally, when I find myself doing that (and I do often), I try to put things in perspective.

Anyway, the CNN heroes are extraordinary people and they're attempting to inspire people like me -- stuffed, sitting on the couch, Facebooking and blogging about absolutely nothing.