A couple of Thanksgivings ago, the fam and I went back to our native town of Sioux City to celebrate with the bigger fam.

We began the day stuffing ourselves with turkey at my mom’s parents and planned to move on to the other side of the family by evening.

It just so happened that an aunt and uncle from my dad’s side of the family had just moved into a home a few up from my grandparents’. In celebration of their new house, they hosted the Thanksgiving feast for my dad’s side of my family.

My parents, one of my brothers and I made the move up the street just as our rears were able to be lifted from the television. My big bro, Carter, was doing his usual domination of ping-pong in the basement, hustling all of our uncles.

As we left it, Carter was to meet up with us when his game was over. He eventually showed up, but it wasn’t exactly an easy stroll up the street for him.

Before I give away what he did, let me first describe my big brother. If you had to describe him in two words, it would be four and point. He was, and in some ways still is, your basic All-American kid.

The dumbest thing he had ever done up to this point was stick-up for his loud-mouth-little-brother (that’s me).

Anyway, Carter’s the kind of guy who thinks two when he hears the word “couple.” So, he went up two houses from my grandparents’ and walked right up to the porch.

He saw some of our relatives’ cars in the street outside and didn’t think twice about it. Where he got sloppy was his entrance into the house. Rather than knock, he just walked right in.

At first he didn’t recognize much. But a P. Buckley Moss painting hanging in the hallway convinced him that it was the right house.

You see, even though we have no relation to the artist, everyone in the family likes to pretend we do. So we buy a bunch of her paintings.

But other people buy her paintings also and that’s what my brother never thought of. Naturally, he went for the kitchen and grabbed some of the snacks that were sitting out.

He heard some laughter in the basement and figured that was where we were. While munching on their food, he walked downstairs only to find that he did not recognize anyone.

I’m pretty sure these people found his mistake just as funny as my family, but I doubt they still talk about it as much. It seems like the Moss clan can’t gather without mentioning my big bro’s little mishap.

I don’t know what made me think of that story but I just couldn’t get it out of my head all week.

I think it had a lot to do with that for the first year ever, Carter missed Thanksgiving with the family. He is an engaged man now and it was time to feast with the in-laws.

Anyway, this Thanksgiving I decided to be most thankful for family and humor and how easily they coincide at the Moss home.

Now we have less than a month until Christmas, and to tie in the music theme, it’s time to pull out the holiday tunes.

There’s not a lot of new stuff out there, but if you can find Beck’s version of “Little Drum Machine Boy,” it’s a shoe-in for holiday song-of-the-year.

Here’s my quick version of which holiday discs to buy and which to skip over.

Last year’s Kenny G sucks as bad as the Mariah Carey. The newest Manheim Steamroller is good, but the older ones are better. You can’t go wrong with Paul Simon and Steve Martin’s “Silver Bells.”

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Corey Moss is a freshman in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale.