Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, but we took advantage of the weather and celebrated last Friday out on the patio. The hourly weather report showed the wind was going to shift from NW to N, so I set up the bamboo and reed windbreaks I made for the new arbor and Steve started up the fire pit. You can see from the pic that it’s just a simple metal free-standing pit that I surrounded with some bricks left over from a garden project, but it does the job. As has often been the case in holidays past, once my inner hostess gets going, it goes the extra mile, so I dragged out a bunch of fall decorations, pillows and throws for the chairs, linens for the various little tables, and finished it off by hanging my door-length Give Thanks banner on the arbor. Just in case it wasn’t clear enough that it’s Thanksgiving, right?
Next was the food table. Kept a veggie pasta dish warm in an Instant Pot and used a crock pot to keep garlic bread warm. Baked a little apple crisp for dessert. Steve got the beverage table set up, then the kids arrived with a broccoli cheddar quiche and the makings for s’mores. My mother has had a bad back lately, but she happily managed to make it down the step from the back door and provided a bottle of Asti for cranberry spritzers. It worked out great–and was tons easier than the usual table-groaning Thanksgiving spread!
As always, the conversations were fun, and my granddaughter often added her own 6-year-old take on things. After we ate, I got in a game of distanced kick ball with her and we toasted marshmallows over the fire pit. I can’t remember the last time I’d done that. In fact, it’s been several years since we’d last used the fire pit. Hopefully, it will get a lot of use this winter.
The funny thing about Thanksgiving traditions is that we probably came closer this time to the original gathering–outdoors, with what food we had on hand. Unlike those long-ago folks, however, we know enough to use social distancing. The newcomers brought diseases the locals had no experience of. I can only hope that tomorrow’s gatherings are done wisely, because we do know what’s out there this time around.
Happy Thanksgiving, and be safe, grateful, and well.