It's Thanksgiving. For our family, there have never been any traditional ways of celebrating it--we just responded to whatever was going on at the time. Thus, we went a couple of times to Richard's mother's home on Long Island when she still lived there and the kids were young, some years we invited people to our house (my father's last Thanksgiving was with us in our home in Mt. Rainier Maryland in 1988, twenty years ago), some years we were at my brother-in-law Jim's home, or friends' homes. This year we are going to my daughter Anna's new in-law's home. A hodgepodge of celebrations! I don't remember Thomas being particularly attached to anything but the food . . .

This year, we do have things to be thankful for, notably our new son-in-law Mike and our new puppy (not equally important of course, but improvements to the quality of life, both of them!). Mike and Anna got a puppy too so we plan to put the whole group in our Christmas picture, to go with the usual Christmas letter. We haven't done a picture since Thomas died so this is a milestone.

And now, off to make fresh cranberry sauce and pecan pie, while sitting of course! Have a happy Thanksgiving my friends.