It’s Thanksgiving day again; another year passed remembering the good and the bad. Thanksgiving continues to be my favorite holiday, and one thing I’m thankful for is that this holiday has remained relatively commercial-free. This is and should be the one day each each when families and friends come together to celebrate, reflect on the year passed, and give thanks for their many blessings. Then eat a lot of turkey-based foods.
This is a white Thanksgiving day as we already had our first snow of the year yesterday. Given my general lack of excitement about cold weather, having snow in November doesn’t bode well for the rest of the winter. But, whatever; I can be thankful that summer is on the way…
This has been another fairly good year for the Charest family, Virginia edition, and I have many things to be thankful for.
- Winnie and I are still together. More than anything else, I am thankful for the marriage we’ve built together.
- I still have my health. My doctor continues to tell me I’m in pretty good shape for a man my age, which I continue to take as a compliment. On the flip side, I wonder about the people my age who’re not in such good shape.
- The family finally got my mom out of her house in the middle of nowhere and moved her down to Tennessee, where she has lots of people around to take care of her and keep her company. I know it was hard for mom to make that move, but she did and everyone in the family came together to help her.
- I’m still employed, making a decent income that provides for our needs and still leaves extra money to put away for retirement.
- We had a nice vacation trip this past spring to England and France. Winnie got to Europe for the first time, we saw Paris in the Springtime, and even had a bonus of visiting an old friend in London and my brother in Cardiff.
- I continue to enjoy boating and kayaking during the months when It’s actually warm enough to be outside.
My normal Thanksgiving tradition has been to invite over a lot of friends and family (on the occasions that family actually live nearby) and cook a huge turkey with all the trimmings. One big regret here in Northern Virginia is that there is no family close by and the friends we’ve made have their own plans for Thanksgiving. This year will just be the two of us so I’m not cooking. Winnie and I have dinner reservations at Gadsby’s Tavern, a historic tavern in Old Town Alexandria that advertises “Fine Dining Since 1770.” Presumably, they’ve learned something about cooking during the past 244 years so this should be a nice experience for us.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Eat lots of turkey, and have a great day together with friends and family.
