Thanksgiving

We celebrated our first Thanksgiving with Lucia this year with Beth and Nate in Napa. Beth made an elaborate and delicious Thanksgiving feast, with all the traditional trimmings—including corn casserole, which is a Clark tradition but new to me and Andrew. Because it is NorCal, Andrew and I sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic for three hours trying to make our way to their house. But also because it is NorCal, the day was so sunny and beautiful that we were able to eat outside in the Clarks’ backyard, where they’d set up a lovely dining table. Lucia handled the long trip and the small crowd at dinner splendidly, with only a little fussing. Lucia will surely not remember her first Thanksgiving, but we will, and we were very glad to get to spend it with the Clarks.

It’s impossible not to feel immensely thankful this year—for Andrew, for our beautiful little baby, for the chance to spend these days at home with her, for the quiet evenings spent with just the three of us. We still wish we were living somewhere else, to make visits with our families easier. But it’s funny to realize that now that Lucia’s here, our life would look pretty much just like this—quiet days, quiet evenings, lots of books and movies and TV and walks—whether we were in Roseville or New York or anywhere else. Last year, we spent Thanksgiving in Japan, having a Zen vegan dinner at a remote lodge in Nikko with rain pouring down outside. That was nice, of course—but this version of November is nice too. It’s our new normal, and I treasure every day of it.