This Thanksgiving, my family is headed to Hocking Hills State Park near Logan, Ohio, where we will spend the holiday weekend feasting and playing and hiking and catching up with relatives, some of whom we haven't seen for two or three years.

An undertaking such as this has its benefits and drawbacks. Some of my best Thanksgiving memories as an adult are from the years this branch of the family got together at various parks in Georgia and Kentucky: taking my nephew, Garrett, to see the little waterfall at Vogel State Park near Blairsville, Ga., when he was 2; browsing the whimsical shops in Paducah, Ky., with all my nieces and nephews in tow when Emma was a baby; playing the most violent game of Spoons on record (and my husband catching our table-diving lunacy on film). No denying those were fun times.

The down sides of our every-other-year gatherings include all the preparing, planning and packing involved, and the craziness of all of us being together for four days. I mean, you try cooking for 30 or more people in a tiny cabin kitchen with only dollar-store pots and utensils at your disposal. We have to pack practically our whole kitchen, Pampered Chef utensils and stoneware included, if we have a prayer of dinner prep going smoothly once we hit the woods.

And if it's freezing out, it's amazing how quickly cabin fever sets in when surrounded by 30 of your not-so-closest relatives!

My husband is especially sensitive to this, for several reasons, not the least of which is because it's my family we'll be hanging out with. Plus, he's a homebody. He'd prefer to have Thanksgiving dinner at our house, with just his immediate family.

I like those Thanksgivings, too - the intimate, quiet kind where you doze on the couch after dinner and no one forces you outside on a hike or to toss corn bags.

But this is a "clan gathering" year, so gather we will. And toss corn bags we will. And get on each other's nerves we will. But I'm sure there will be opportunities for dozing on the couch; it'll just be a scratchy state park couch and the dozing may have to be squeezed in between gathering kindling and mad dashes to the general store to pay outrageous prices for things we forgot to pack like butter or a turkey baster.

Which reminds me, I better get our turkey baster out of Emma's toy box so I don't forget to pack it!

- - -

So, it's November - have you taken your family Christmas card portrait yet? We hope to take ours this weekend, if we can corner Christian when he's home from college. We actually haven't taken a family photo with him for about five years, and we have never had a photo done with all four of us, so we vow this is the year!

For musings about Christmas card photos, check out Shasta Clark's Mommy Moments column this month, and the great Christmas card "blooper" photo she submitted to accompany it.

Shasta had a great idea that, because so many people take their own Christmas portraits these days, we should ask readers to send in their Christmas card "bloopers." Then, we'll publish the funniest ones in the December issue. We hope you didn't delete them!

Send in your funniest Christmas card photos (they don't have to be recent) by e-mailing betsy@ovparent.com, or mailing to Betsy Bethel, OV Parent magazine, 1500 Main St., Wheeling, WV 26003 by Nov. 16. All acceptable photos will be posted on the Web site (one per family). A few will be published in the December OV Parent magazine. If your photo is printed in the magazine, you'll get a $25 gift card to Target.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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