Special

Thanksgiving was a wonderful celebration this year. My whole family (siblings and parents) were together for the first time in a LONG time. Erica and I cooked the feast in Jenny's beautiful kitchen throughout the day Thursday. There was something almost sportlike about quietly cooking side-by-side with somebody else who loves cooking as much as I do. Meanwhile the cousins chased each other and the dog round and round the dining room, pretending to be mice and puppies and giggling the whole time. The uncles talked and laughed and aired out the house of smoke when the turkey took a minor tumble in the oven (!).

I was so thankful when the meal turned out fantastic. We served a moist, brined turkey, baked mac and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy, sauteed mustard greens with crispy bacon, roasted cauliflower with dates and pine nuts, candied sweet potato casserole, sweet potato biscuits, spinach salad, and the obligatory but always delicious cranberry sauce. I consider myself very much a rookie in the holiday feast preparation department, so it was quite rewarding that this one turned out so well.

The rest of the weekend was spent laughing with my siblings, enjoying how we are all so different and unique in our own ways. I slept very little on the trip, my insomnia rearing its nasty little head, reinforcing the sad fact that I'm not as great a traveler as I once was.

I arrived home last night to Matt (who wasn't able to travel with us) and a blazing fire in the fireplace. I had secretly hoped on my drive home that he would have a fire going. I kissed him straight away, thankful that he knows me so well. I woke up this morning at 11 am to another warm fire (double swoon!) and Matt applying temporary tattoos to the hand of my giddy daughter. I arrived just in time to stop him from applying a couple of snowflakes to her neck. It would be creepy, I informed him.

We got dressed and headed out for brunch with the Sunday morning church crowd. We each ordered our own breakfast and then ordered pecan pancakes with maple syrup to share, an essential stop on the breakfast tour. The next stop was the Christmas tree tent where we picked out a goodly-sized fraser fir, loaded it up, and listened to our sleepy, over-stimulated-by-holiday-festivities daughter whine the whole way home. A prompt nap was gifted to her upon arriving home. Matt and I followed suit.

We have a family date to put up the tree tonight, lug the plastic Christmas bins out of the storage room, deck the tree, place the stockings on the mantle, and enjoy some holiday music.

Today is not like other days. Most are filled with the mundane obligations of keeping life afloat, with hurried schedules, house chores, work commitments, bickering, and little time for big milestone celebrations. And while there is so much beauty in those ordinary type of days, I'm so thankful for special days like today. Days where we stop and celebrate and feast and have fun. I know I need the ordinary, but I also really need the special. Like...I need them deep, deep down in my soul. Somehow they speak of the joy of living and the reality that we are, after all, only human.

Photo: The church folk around us waiting to be seated for brunch.