SPECIAL THANKSGIVING FAVES

 

Here we are at a Friday and the day after Thanksgiving already! 

I hope those of you in the States had a wonderful holiday feast reflecting on all of our blessings from the past year. I'm still in the area where it all began.......we love it here. If I could afford the housing in Plymouth, I would choose this as a 2nd choice for living. The ocean...the history.....the proximity to Boston.....

but for now....I'm sharing FIVE of the blessings that top my FAVES list this week and linking up at Susanne's site where other bloggers participate as well. 

a fave lunch combo: Autumn Squash soup
and Half a Grilled Cheese Sandwich

handknit baby sweater

• SPECIAL DATE DAY:  After church on Sunday, my oldest daughter and I had a "date". We wanted to grab lunch at one of our fave lunch quick chain restaurants and then head to the Shaker Site Christmas Craft fair which features all kinds of local/Capital Region area artists, pottery makers, farmers, etc. It's a huge room in the museum and it was jammed pack full of paintings, sketches, knit products, crocheted items, pottery (my fave but a tad bit out of my price range), leather and tin products, maple and honey products and goat milk products. One thing that caught my eye was the darling baby sweater pictured above. I  bought it for a baby named Nora who is just turning 6 months old and is darling. She's the  first child  of my youngest daughter's good friend C who was the one to encourage Claire to become an optician. I also found a couple of "stocking stuffers" for Dave and Courtney bought something as well. We had a really good time together and ended our time together with a brisk power walk around the neighborhood. I'm thankful to have had this time with oldest girl. 

• SPECIAL GIFT: When I brought the baby blankets over to the former student and his family, his mom gave me a Christmas poem she had written for him, dedicated to him, and then gave me the ornament she made to go with the poem. I haven't had a chance to ask her permission to post the poem but this little acorn was the first ornament I put on our Christmas tree this year. I do have to finish decorating the house for Christmas once we are back from MA but for now this little acorn has a prominent spot on the tree. I'm so thankful for the blessing of this special family. 

• SPECIAL WORDS: A member of my small group, Walking group and Hiking group who is now becoming a good friend (Maggie) gifted me with this nice card and 2 small magnetic bookmarks as a "thank you" for leading the book group discussion.  In fact, she's such a giving person, she gifted all the members with a card and these cute scriptural bookmarks. I appreciate her kind words and actions and I look forward to our Spring semester book group as she signed up for that one, too.  We are both recently retired and find we have a lot in common. I'm thankful for when God puts like-minded people in our paths to do life with. 

me with my sister-in-law Katharine

• SPECIAL SHIRTS:  Kathy (the wife of my husband's older brother, Peter) and I ordered these shirts for 2023 but they didn't come in on time so we saved them for this year's Thanksgiving Day. We thought they were a hoot. They're not the greatest quality but it was fun to wear them for the feast. If you can't read the small print, they say Wine, Turkey, Family. You'd have to know the extended clan to appreciate why we ordered them. I AM thankful for a fun sister in law....we always remind each other "Hey, we CHOSE this crazy family". hahaha

The Feast table

Hanna, Courtney, Claire 

Dave and Kathy

Courtney (my oldest), Hanna (my niece who lives in Scotland), Claire (my youngest)
the other 2 nieces and 2 nephews couldn't make it this year. 
photo compliments of Kathy 

• SPECIAL DAY:  Yesterday was a special day of course for the T--- clan. Because my husband is a direct descendant from The Mayflower, this has always been the big holiday for his side of hte family. Now that his dad is gone (the first Thanksgiving without him),  we thought his mom would have a hard time. But she didn't. She actually chose to NOT come to the feast but the 3 grandchildren (my 2 girls plus their Scotland cousin) all spent the late afternoon with her since she only lives a mile from Peter and Kathy's.  It was Peter's turn to cook and he did an amazing job. Dave and I made the vegan stuffing, cranberry bread and sweet potato casserole.  Hanna made all the pies when she got here from Scotland Tuesday, Claire did all the setting up and Courtney made the stuffed dates. Sadly, Dave's youngest sister Paula and her husband, 2 young adult kids and grandbaby couldn't come. Dave's oldest sister Karen was here with her  partner Ernest from CA.  Pete and Kathy's 2 young adult kids couldn't make it this year either. They are the oldest 2 cousins to my girls. My girls were thrilled that their cousin Hanna was here and we all had a  fun, full day of food, conversation, good cocktails and wine, excellent pie. I'm  so thankful every arrived this week safely to MA. Although the day was dreary and rainy outdoors, the laughter inside made up for it. 

Those are the special blessings from the past week.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and safe travels back to your homes if you're like me and hitting the roads or skies  tomorrow.