A Lovely Little Thanksgiving...

In a year of many firsts, Eric and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving together yesterday. It was small, just the two of us, but very nice. Even if I had been in CA, our family is kind of scattered to the 4 winds this year at Thanksgiving...Jonathan with his in-laws and my mom at a family reunion in Mexico, and several cousins out of town.

I'm adjusting to a quieter life now in WA, free of the drama of being a schoolteacher and away from a faster pace of living that has been all I've known. For the most part, I like it, but I am aware that it is requiring adjustment. Still, I'm extremely thankful for the direction my life has taken this year.

Eric had to work from 5am-5pm yesterday, so I planned our dinner to be at 6:30. Enough time for him to come home, shower, and unwind a little. We got to use our wedding china for the first time. And, although Eric teases me about having 10 place settings and others these days are even foregoing having a set of wedding china altogether, to me, it is one of the little perks of getting married. By golly, I was going to have wedding china! Eric, who has great taste, is actually the one who found this pattern, Padova, by Waterford. We went to Portland a few weeks ago and ordered the balance of our set. I make no apologies, I love our wedding china!

I made out the menu for our dinner a few days ago, bought the groceries on Wednesday, and set the table early yesterday morning. Even though it was just the 2 of us, I wanted it to be memorable, so I dressed nice. And, although he usually changes into sweats after working 12 hours, Eric followed my lead when he got home, and was very good about steering clear of the kitchen and dining room until 6:30.

The result was a quiet, intimate, candlelight dinner of chicken thighs (no turkey for just the 2 of us,) stuffing, gravy, salad, asparagus, yams, rolls, cranberry sauce, sparking cider, and pumpkin pie. We said a blessing and dug in, thankful to have food on the table, a great house in which to live, our health, our families, Eric's income, and each other. It was lovely.

Tonight when he gets off work, we are heading over to his parents' house in Kelso, about 2.5 miles away (everything is VERY local here, unless you want to do some serious shopping, then you've got about a 40 mile drive ahead of you.) They are having their Thanksgiving today to accommodate his dad's work schedule. I may even meet his sister for the first time, who lives about 2 hours away, if she joins us.

Next is Christmas! I need to address my Christmas card envelopes, buy stamps, and send those babies off. We also have 3 Christmas trees this year, a large one for the front window, a white one with red decorations for the downstairs family room, and a small one for some extra flair in the dining room somewhere. For me, the music and lights and decorations of Christmas are my favorite part, much more than presents, which will be lean after this incredibly expensive year of wedding, honeymoon, and almost 15 round trip flights back and forth between CA and WA between the 2 of us.

Of course, the real reason for this time of year is to be thankful for all we have, to be extra mindful of others and to remember the blessed event of our Lord's birth. May you and yours have a wonderful holiday season.