I love the Thanksgiving season. It’s less hectic than Christmas, it’s just about spending time with family which also includes time out in nature. The weather is crisp and cold, we’ve often had rain so things are starting to green up, the leaves on the trees are gorgeous. I can bundle up in warm clothes, it gets dark early, and I can be in cozy light-filled spaces. I can spend time snuggled on the couch with a good book. And it’s a time for thinking about what I’m grateful for.
On Wednesday, I took Mom to church and took a walk in the nearby neighborhood. I was struck by all of the wonderful gates and decorations in people‘s yards.
I’ve spent the last couple of days house and cat sitting, getting to know a different town. It’s been fun to walk around the neighborhood, found a few Free Little Libraries (one had a roll of doggy poop bags!), a huge basket of lemons, and some fun decorations on peoples lawns. I made ginger snap cookies, my annual contribution to our Thanksgiving feast. Making the cookies was a little more challenging than I had expected as the place I was housesitting had almost no baking sheets and no cooking spray. Luckily, I was able to find workaround and had an enjoyable couple of hours listening to Christmas music and making dozens of ginger snaps.
Thanksgiving morning I headed to my sister Lori‘s house and spent a very enjoyable day with most of the family. In addition to the people, we had three dogs who got along pretty well for the most part. It helped that the weather was conducive to letting them go outside and run around. The food was really good, I even liked the turkey which is not usual for me, Lori had made it very moist and tasty. I went back for seconds of most everything knowing that I would probably regret it, but also knowing that it would be my only chance for stuffing and green bean bake until next Thanksgiving. Of course that did not stop me from trying all the different desserts – fudge, Dutch apple pie, chocolate Oreo pie, and of course, some ginger snaps. Toby and I took the dogs out for a walk afterwards, and I felt like I was rolling down the sidewalk instead of walking!
Friday was our annual trip to the Christmas tree farm, something I think my kids enjoy even more than Thanksgiving dinner. We always meet at the Peet’s coffee in Cotati, then caravan over to Reindeer Ridge Christmas Tree farm. Unfortunately, it has become a very very popular place, and that combined with the fact that Thanksgiving was so late this year meant there were lots of people there before we even arrived. It used to be we would arrive and they hadn’t even unlocked the outdoor bathrooms or finished setting up the little store. It took longer than usual to find trees that we were all happy with. I don’t know if it’s because of the drought that we had for a while, but many of the trees were not very full or were pretty lopsided. But, everyone managed to find a tree to bring home. Later we all piled into the tractor trailer and went for a ride around the farm. Toby had bought a slew of light up Christmas beanies that we all wore, a change from the old style Santa hats that we have used for years. After everyone got their trees stowed in or on top of their cars we headed over to a local park for lunch. The dogs were in heaven, chasing after balls, and the adults all enjoyed the beautiful oak trees, and chance to be away from the hordes at the Christmas tree farm. Another successful tree cutting day!
