Ahhhh Thanksgiving...

a day in which we come together as friends and family to remind ourselves of all the things we have to be thankful for.
A day full of dread, anxiety, and trepidation. Oh how I hate this holiday. Usually.....
Normally, for Thanksgiving, we go over to my mother's, or to my wife's mothers house. We do not usually stay long, because I start getting really antsy about all the noise and people milling about. Usually 4 hours is my limit before I start feeling like something is crushing my chest.
This year, we decided to join my brother-in-law and his family and friends.
This ended up being the largest Thanksgiving dinner I can ever recall attending.
However, it didnt go off like I expected at all.
I anticipated the worst, knowing that there would be no less than 17 people there. At on point, there was actually 21 people who attended.
I figured my limit would be 2 hours max, and we would probably end up leaving sooner, because my youngest, who is also autistic, would be begging the whole time, (which would only make things worse), to go home.
Didn't happen.
We arrives at a little after 3 and didn't leave until after 9. And then, only because my wife had to be up at 5 am to go to work.
My son didn't ask one time to return home. I didnt feel out of place, and only had one, "awkward moment". It was only so because as people were go about talking with each other, about four small, "pocket groups" formed, and I was unsure of which one I should try to move to. I ended up just picking one randomly, and that ended that.
No one talked down to me, or treated me differently. No one made me feel unwelcome.
What makes this so impressive, is that these people, most of them, I barely know. None were complete strangers, but you could not say I was close to any of them, save my brother-in-law.
So what did I learn from this? What do I have to be thankful for.......I thankful because, sometimes I am wrong!