Recently Enjoyed | Thanksgiving Past
Enjoying a personal walk down memory lane.
I’m doing something a little different today. On this, the week we celebrate being grateful for what we have, the shopping world is a little shouty and frankly, I don’t think you need any more recommendations and definitely don’t need any from me.
Actually, I am going to recommend one thing: this eyeball popping post from
on the illusion of Black Friday.Carrying on. Earlier this week I read something that likened Substack to Tumblr for millennials and I practically howled. Yes, it totally is. I scroll my feed often, save the inspiring stuff and feel emboldened to share my opinions sometimes. It’s actually just like what Facebook became when our grandparents discovered it and started posting on their walls and now, I’m just one of the grannies.
So today I’m going to share some personal stuff. I’m taking a little wander down memory lane of Thanksgiving Past and putting out a newsletter that will read more like the blogs I used to post on Myspace (really hitting on all the original platforms, ay?).
2014
My husband and I had just gotten married and it’s before we had kids, so we took our role as dog people super seriously. This was also the year we left our jobs and house and families and moved 250 miles away for my new job, which at this particular moment, was not going well. We traveled back to our old stomping grounds for the holiday weekend. Since I was not adjusting to our move and basically feeling permanently sad, being back in familiar territory was such a reprieve. We stayed in our friend's guest house and got very wine drunk the night before Thanksgiving, piling up for this family picture. These dogs aren't even ours (except for the black one barely in the frame). Maybe it was the wine or being with friends, but GD it felt so good to be home.
2015
2015 and I was starting to adjust at my job I guess, because we decided to buy a house just before Thanksgiving. Those 2015 interest rates, you know? We also got a Rottweiler puppy to go with the new yard and then I promptly got pregnant. A spastic puppy and new baby would make for a new kind of challenging year, officially putting my work woes in second place.
2016
Happy birthday to George, our 1-year old puppy at the time, and boy was he a rager. He chewed up and ate just about everything I loved that year. My mom visited around this time and lamented that our dogs were more work than the baby.
Speaking of, we had a brand new baby at home! Thanksgiving was bittersweet because it was the last week of my maternity leave. I remember vividly going back to work the Monday after Thanksgiving and being SO ready. That’s not the story you usually hear about the end of maternity, so I just want to say it aloud for anyone else who felt similarly. It felt good to get dressed up and talk to adults and leave the house and I’m not sorry about that.
2017
The year is snowed SO much, it looked more like Christmas than Thanksgiving. We were completely snowed in and we stayed home that year.
2018
I loved that shirt, even though we're not particularly religious and my baby doesn't even like chocolate milk (can you believe!?). But the "drives mom crazy" bit was (is) accurate.
For Thanksgiving in 2018, we were back in our hometown, which by now we were a good 4 years into living far away and we’d adjusted, but it still feels so freaking good to be back. My husband’s brother and his wife hosted about 47 zillion people that year (and are about to again this year) and my favorite picture was when the grandmas collectively surrendered to the tryptophan.
2020
This is a really excellent example of the wild child we're raising here. We took about 39 of these pictures and this the nicest of the bunch. 2020 was that weird year right, and we had spent the summer out of work and traveling around in our motorhome. We came back just in time for Thanksgiving and I had just gotten rehired at work. Things are really really good for us right here and I am a very grateful woman in this picture.
2021
This picture looks more Christmas-y than it actually is. In 2021, my office was still working remotely and I guess I just wanted the cheeriness of a tree with lights a little earlier this usual. This is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and our home was so warm and cozy and clean and it feels so good to be here. This is also the year that my son became obsessed with board games and we’ve played that old LIFE boardgame a thousand times since. My mom gave it to me - it’s the board I grew up with and boy is she dated. I wonder sometimes how different the new boards/cards/prompts are.
2022
Haha, this still makes me laugh. A Thanksgiving project that my son worked on at school and honestly, I think my kiddo's heart is in the right place. I commended him for being grateful for people and pets, although I was surprised to see our dog Ralph, who died in 2019 on the list, but not George, the currently alive dog who eats whatever my son doesn’t want, and goes first into a dark room when he is scared, and basically does all of my son’s bidding all the time.
2023
Well this one turned out to be another weird year. The day before Thanksgiving, we drove 5 hours to spend the holiday with our family. In the middle of the night, our hosts both became violently ill and by 7am Thanksgiving morning, the entire dinner was cancelled. We packed right back up and headed home, making it back in time to toss a chicken in the oven and makeshift a meal. I was on deck for the dessert for the original dinner plans, so happily we were able to feast on that. It turned out totally fine. Sometimes you just gotta roll with the punches, you know?
2024
Happy Thanksgiving you guys. I'm so selfishly grateful to live in a time when I can self publish what is basically a journal and call myself a writer because of it. I'm grateful for a son who has low standards and a forgiving heart. Bless him, he's always telling me I'm the best mom ever, and that's all I ever want to be. I'm grateful for my husband, from whom the forgiving heart comes, and all the good years we've had together. I'm grateful for small luxuries, like fountain Diet Coke and grocery store sushi. I'm grateful that Target delivers in 2-days and that someone invented coffee makers with automatic timers. What a great idea.
Wishing you all the happiest Thanksgiving! See ya next week!
Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for sharing such lovely moments.
This is beyond cute. Thank you 🧡