what a difference...

[anniekelleher]

... a year makes. this time last year, i was finishing up a meal i'd cooked for twenty-two people. the feast was merely a punctuation point to a dizzying fall that included katie's shower for sixty in september and the birth of baby jake in october. and let's not forget, of course, moving my grandmother up here the previous august out of the house she'd lived in for nearly 95 years.

we were five generations at my table last year. i'm glad i wallowed in the thanksgivingness of it all. i'm glad i made four kinds of dessert, four different veggies. i'm glad i made extra crescent rolls. i'm glad i rushed and chopped and carried and shopped. because i don't feel the need to do it now.

my mother and brother and stepfather have gone to vienna. my sister is hosting one of her multi-cultural thanksgivings in boston (representatives of five different nations are breaking bread as i type this.) my brother in california is with my daddy. my grandmother has gone to heaven, of course, and my children have dispersed themselves to each other's houses and foreign turkeys and funny tasting sides.

Beloved went to the soup kitchen this morning, and helped cooked dinner for over 100 people this year. so far this thanksgiving, i've taken a thirty-minute walk with the puppies and had three naps. the weather has changed from bright sun to a sullen twilight. it's only me and Beloved for dinner, and the cold air smells like snow. i defrosted some chicken breasts - organic ones, no less. there's bread from brooklyn, a pumpkin pie i made yesterday, and rose's rhubarb-cranberry mead. it is a very different sort of dinner from last year, and yet for which i feel as deeply grateful.

may whatever sort of thanksgiving you have, Gentle Reader, make you feel similarly blessed. and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

[ainamama]

Nov. 27, 2008 at 4:57 PM

nice to see you back~blessings to you~

[Mama_McD]

Nov. 27, 2008 at 10:22 PM

welcome back!  Nice to read a journal of yours again.  Happy Thanksgiving!  We also had a low key day, nothing big, business as usual, but I found thankfulness in those small moments.  Playing frisbee in the rain with the kids was the greatest part of my day!

[massagegiftmom]

Nov. 29, 2008 at 2:38 PM

what a lovely thanksgiving.  I can relate to the "need to do it".  I'm glad this year was quiet.

This year I let that need go.  We didn't even have our gathering on Thanksgiving.  How's that for untraditional.  Thanksgiving night was spent with my dh and my father at a local resteraunt and we sat over a simple supper enjoying eachother vs me slaving over the kitchen all day to create a memory or feeling for others.  This year it was about enjoying their happiness but creating my own at the same time.  We at last night at a resteraunt that specialises in turkey dinner's all year round.  We sat down got settled and suddenly the family was taken in by a 2 minute presentation of spanish coffee making by the bartenders for other customers.  I looked on as most of my family smiled and just in that little instant, meals not even ordered  I got what I came for. 

Everyone was smiling all at once.  That's all I needed this year.