My mother has 10 siblings, and fitting all of them plus their spouses and children into a small Harlem apartment is always a wondrous feat. For my family, Thanksgiving is like Christmas plus New Year’s Eve squared. It is definitely not something to be missed.

Some of my relatives fly in from Oregon, California and Pitsburg, making my drive from Washington to New York seem like a small sacrifice. MapQuest says that it should take four hours and seven minutes to drive from Rockville to New York, but driving up last Wednessday in bumper to bumper traffic, took my family over nine hours.

The Thanksgiving party started around 2 p.m. on Thursday. As people arrived, you could hear the usual conversations about how exponentially someone’s children are growing, or about how young one of my elderly relatives looks.

As the night wore on and people started to look more and more sick as they forced more and more food into their mouths, the traditional, highly competitive trivia game started. With prizes of religious icons, Yankees caps, shirts, DVDs and cofee mugs, it paid off to remember as many random facts about New York City as you could.

Like usual, the desert competition pited great entries against extrodinary ones. This year there were more deserts than real food. Before I came to the conclusion that if I ate any more I would pass out, I had the pleasure of tasting about half of them. Even though each bite gave my bloated stomach more pain, the taste was amazing.