The holidays are a oxymoronic time of the year for me. I love many things about the November and December months-the autumn colors, the food, and especially the hustle and bustle of shoppers who have too much to buy and too little to spend. But I also imagine the holidays as the official sponsor of "overcrowded dinner tables" and "loud conversation that carries to your next door neighbor". Your second cousins, half-sisters, niece's boyfriend-there's not any other time of the year when family by association becomes your best ticket to a real, authentic holiday feast and some cheesy family togetherness.

I am an only child. My household consists of my mother, my father, and myself. The rest of my family are halfway around the world in Shanghai, where they think of Thanksgiving and Christmas as far-off American holidays that exist largely to give us "mei guo ren" a reason to spend money and get fat. Thus around these parts, I've only known dinners with friends of my parent's, or small, quiet holidays with mom and dad that, although wonderful, just seems to miss the festiveness of a holiday spread and a tableful of hungry mouths to eat it.

Don't get me wrong-this year and every year I'm thankful for my family just as they are. I could not have asked for better parents if I tried, but sometimes I do wish my family was BIGGER. I wish I had brothers and sisters. I wish I had aunts and uncles that came into town for Thanksgiving, and grandmothers whose houses I could go to on Christmas Eve. I just don't have that kind of family, and my family just doesn't have that kind of culture.

This Thanksgiving, I think about all that I'm thankful for. The list runs long and strong, but there is one bullet point I'd like to mention. Have you guessed it already? Yes, I'm thankful for Texas 4000 and each and every one of my teammates. This year has brought me a new family. Like blood kin, you don't ask for them-you simply appreciate them exactly as they are. And they are just that- unique, intelligent, giving individuals whom now I cannot imagine not ever have knowing. They are future doctors, cancer survivors, graduate students, accomplished athletes, and much more. Today my family has gone from 3 members to 58 because "family" has begun to take on a new life and a new meaning. This family is the epitome of the loud, spirited, talkative community I've always wanted from a group of people of this size and proportion. I am thankful to have them in my life, and so so thankful that I can consider myself a part of a family that has been brought together by the urgency of a remarkable cause and the devotion to fight it together.