Thanksgiving with family

The happiest moments of my life

have a been the few which I have

passed at home in the bosom of my family.
-Thomas Jefferson

Unfortunately this will be a very short post and not nearly long enough to make up for how long it has been since I last posted. However, in my defense (though not a good one!) I've just been terribly busy trying to wrap things up at work in preparation for the long holiday weekend. I'm sort on sleep (no surprise there, cranky, sitting on my laptop curled up under the covers in the basement of my grandparents house by the lake. Ahh, now that the preparation for the holiday is over the real fun begins - oh how I love leftovers the day after Thanksgiving! My family has a long tradition of meeting at my grandparents house for Thanksgiving - a holiday not to be missed come hell or high water! My grandmother is a wonderful cook and I'll have to detail all that later when I'm not so sleep deprived, but what makes this season truly special is family. Long dinners together and talks at the kitchen counter that outlast many consecutive pots of tea. Tomorrow my grandpa will take us sailing, we will talk for hours and stuff ourselves with leftovers - and then tomorrow night we will munch through two birthday cakes and celebrate anyone who has had a birthday since we last got together (that makes 5 birthdays tomorrow!), open presents and have a jolly time of it. I love my family.

What ever you do in the hustle and bustle of the upcoming Christmas season and in the wake of Thanksgiving with all the sales, shopping, Christmas decorating, etc. just remember what is truly important to you. All the pretty paper and fancy dishes will be gone, but the conversations, the laughs and memories will be cherished forever. So take a breath in the midst of it all to remember what you are Thankful for this year, and what the coming Christmas will mean to you and your family.

(Humm, guess this was not such a short post afterall :-) Goodnight!)