Photo: Chronica Domus
Through a concatenation of circumstances, this is the first year I can recall that we are to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday en famille, at home, just the three of us. I am calling it Thanksgiving-lite. Ahead lies a very busy social weekend so we have deliberately chosen to keep the day uncomplicated and low-key. We will share a cozy late-afternoon fireside dinner in the drawing room, seated around the small English Regency Pembroke table that usually resides against the wall in the dining room. I did say it would be cozy. Such useful occasional tables are among the most versatile pieces of furniture ever invented. Easily movable, thanks to brass casters, and expandable (drop-leaf) design, they are excellent tables at which to dine in the smallest of spaces.
We are at heart social creatures, and although not entertaining the usual crowd of waifs and strays, this Thanksgiving day, we are still planning a little fun later in the evening. We will enjoy the welcomed companionship of our dear friends Harvey and Jeannette over desserts, coffee, and postprandial drinks. I have baked a sinfully delicious spiced pumpkin cheesecake, an apple pie, and of course, a traditional pumpkin pie.
Waiting in the wings, dessert too will be moved into the drawing room this evening
in time for our guests' arrival
Photo: Chronica Domus
As I look back over the year, I find myself being thankful for a veritable cornucopia of simple pleasures. Most of all I am thankful for my family and friends, their health, and for the joy they bring into my life. I am a richer person for it. Oh, and how could I have almost forgotten to mention my dear beloved Mavro, another year older and slower, but still reveling in his golden years.
I am thankful to you too, my loyal readers, and wish you all a joyous Thanksgiving.
Photo: Chronica Domus
What do you have planned in celebration of today, and most importantly what are you thankful for this Thanksgiving day?
Happy thanksgiving CD!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Naomi. This is my favorite holiday and I think all countries should set aside a day of giving thanks.
DeleteLovely dinner en famille!
ReplyDeleteYour house always looks so lovely in your photos, you have such a talent for display and colour. Your desserts look scrumptious.
We don't celebrate Thanksgiving today sadly but I did bake a pumpkin pie and I have turkey in the oven along with vegetables. I'll phone my family in Georgia in a few minutes to find out how the day is going, it should be an entertaining call!
Have a lovely day CD and thank you for your blog XO
Hello Dani,
DeleteThank you so much for your lovely comment. We plan to tuck in within the next couple of hours. My husband had a brainwave at the last minute and decided we should make a hot alcoholic beverage to serve with dessert this evening (I had planned something a little cooler), but it is so cold today, it will be perfect (cold for us, that is). He just nipped out to buy some more whisky as reinforcement, and a little more cream.
I do hope you enjoy your family time via telephone today. I'm sure they are cooking up a storm too.
Happy Thanksgiving! I admire how you make everything elegant and celebratory and I love the peek into your world.
ReplyDeleteWhy, thank you Jen Lawrence, so kind of you to to say so. I do so enjoy setting a table, no matter the size, and we did indeed have a marvelous little dinner yesterday, and filled up on pie way too late into the evening once our friends arrived. I think we hit the bed around 2 a.m. (reluctantly) after having such a smash hit evening.
DeleteA very happy Thanksgiving to you too.
CD,
ReplyDeleteAs I sit here, full of delicious turkey day food and good cheer at a family filled day, I'm happy to read of other blog friend's plans and dinners, I feel very fortunate and full of gratitude. The pumpkin cheesecake sounds yummy!
Happy Thanksgiving.
Karen
Hello dear Karen,
DeleteOh, yes, the spiced pumpkin cheesecake was a hit, but it is so rich, we have quite a bit leftover.
Your thanksgiving full of family and food sounded perfect. How could it not be with such a generous hostess!
I wish you and your family a very happy Thanksgiving.
Hello CD, Your photos of your Thanksgiving table are all so inviting they look like they belong in a magazine. This year, Thanksgiving was kind of a non-entity over here, other than of course calling my family. However, I was able to enjoy all the preparations vicariously through your discussions of pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce, and witnessing all the individual variations and preferences that make everyone's traditions unique.
ReplyDelete--Jim
Dearest Jim,
DeleteIsn't the telephone a marvelous invention? It instantly connects us across the miles with family and friends and because of that, I'm sure your Thanksgiving was more than a non entity.
So happy you enjoyed the photographs in this post. We had a wonderful time around our little table and vowed that we should eat around the fireplace more often in the winter months. It was, indeed, cozy!
A very happy Thanksgiving to you, Jim.
Your Pembroke table's castors make it a moveable feast. We too have cooler weather today - the first of our very brief and hardly noticeable "cooler" season in this province in Thailand. Anyway, not so cool that we couldn't indulge in our daily swimming regimen, but quite lovely to sit on the shaded decking afterwards and listen to the birds, and watch the dragonflies dance over the water. Peter Hitchens had a rather interesting comment about the importation of American holidays into Britain, including Thanksgiving, and the dreaded Halloween. He concluded that it was merely a marketing angle. I shan't wish you a "happy" Black Friday - an import that has clear commercial reasons, and not very pretty results. But as an honorary American, I can express my good wishes for your Thanksgiving celebrations:
ReplyDelete"Gratitude is the heart's memory".
Hah, how right you are, it was indeed a movable feast and one that we thoroughly enjoyed. Not sure why it took us so long to pull up a table in front of the fireplace so we plan to do it more often during the cold dark evenings of late-autumn and winter.
DeleteNow, a brisk swim outdoors would be impossible here, unless, that is, you enjoy a shock to the system. I remember when I first moved here how excited I was to live by the ocean, envisioning leisurely swims. Was utterly shocked to discover that the water is entirely too cold to get into, unlike the waters of the Mediterranean which is where I was used to doing most of my swimming, sigh.
Oh, and about that awful Black Friday rubbish, no, absolutely never going there, thank you very much! I always shake my head at the stories I read about such things as fights breaking out and utter chaos. I ask you, who in their right mind would want that on any given day? Not I.
I’ve so enjoyed the simple, elegant joys of this small gathering, arranged and conveyed with the import of a great fete, which it is, in a way. The golden slant of the sun on the table, that coveted, claimed cream-ware awaiting another celebratory repast, and just the fact of the Drawing Room---how I’d love to just throw those two words into conversation!
ReplyDeleteI’ve known but one lady who could claim such---the real-life mother of my Paxton character Thomas Keene, with her silk-papered walls and her morning ritual of correspondence at the charming “secra-tareh” by the window. And I’ve longed since we met for a glimpse other than small vignettes of your tabletop or chair---if you are ever in mind to share that charming space, I’d drink in each and every camera-snap with all the longing of my hot-South--Austen-Trollope girly-girl heart. I love the views obliged by Jane Hattatt of her own Drawing Room, so far in place and custom.
I went back just now through the “waifs and strays” click and viewed last year’s celebration again, and it was a wonderful thing to see---all the preparations and polishings and things chosen carefully for the cherish of them and the guests who would use them. I blush to tell that I simply imagined all the family hustle-bustles, the warm redolences of sage and pie, the light and the clink of silver on plate yesterday, for we had our pot-roast dinner on trays at the TV. What an odd feeling. The wonderful aroma of that pan of cushion-tender beef-in-rich-gravy perfumed the house for several hours in the afternoon, and the corn pudding, the pot of shiny pearls of Calrose, the Waldorf salad, all took a small time in the kitchen to prepare, and we just simply WERE in our dim cocoon, for Caro was sleeping upstairs to go to work, and all the departure of our rowdy crowd the day before was still ringing in the house, somehow, with remnants of fruit and yogurts and pretzel crumbs in the kitchen.
We’ll gather with our few local Lovies on Sunday, when everyone’s schedule allows us the day. There’s an enormous turkey in the fridge for Chris to put on the grill for a few hours, and most of the other necessaries for a small family dinner in the house. We’ll gather and be thankful again.
Just that first sentence of yours reminded me of something I’ve meant to say, in that I thought of Canterbury Bells all the way through the post---concatenation, indeed. Even if you didn’t present all these elegant, charming moments of your life so abundantly lived, even if you’d never learned to aim a camera or arrange a vase or bake a pie---I’d tune in every time your light comes on, simply for your splendiferous vocabulary. You feed my word-greed most generously, and I thank you, simply for that, even without all the lovely lagniappe.
I'm very grateful for this year, which brought you.
rachel
I cannot think where I got that juxtaposition---I chanted through half the alarums and clangings and tinkles of Poe's bells, finding out via Google that I was mistaken, then spent a quiet time with Amy Lowell (shades of Miss Jones' 11th grade speech class, in which half the young Delta daughters chose to emote Sappho in Levkas (WAP was practically a local boy, in fact, being a "planter" from Greenville). I can still hear those innocent young drawls----"Oh, Zeus, my Fawathah . . .") Ob la di Ob la da, how my mind goes on.
DeleteAnyway, I must have confused the gathering of the bells with that delicious word concatenation. Poe just missed a Grand Chance.
Cooking today for our own gathering tomorrow with our local group.
Happy weekend!
Hello racheld,
DeleteHow I adore reading your comments, so full of vivid imagery and colorful language. You could write reams about a breadcrumb and it will be a linguistic marvel for your delighted audience.
You are too generous with your compliments of my measly grasp of words. I do so love the language but never considered myself anything other than an average Joe when it comes to writing. Now you, on the other hand, are an absolute giant in the word department. Anyone who can use the word "lagniappe" is a winner in my book, thank you.
Your tv tray dinner sounded just the thing and no doubt you enjoyed it and are also looking forward to today's special meal with your "lovies".
One of these days (I promise), I shall show you my “secra-tareh” as your wish is my command. It has a life of its own and often speaks to me with creaks and assorted worrying noises with the fluctuating temperatures.
Thank you again for your wonderful comments and so sorry to have caused you such consternation of the word "concatenation".
Enjoy the remainder of the Thanksgiving weekend.
We're awaiting our Sweetpea, et al,, and smelling the aromas of dressing and sweet potato custard from upstairs.
DeleteChris is on the phone with our elusive electrician, for of all days, the furnace breaker went out. Chilly upstairs, in reverse of whatever they taught us in what---physics? Probably first grade.
No consternation here, just that little old naggy tickle when you just CAN'T place that poem where that word would fit into the assemblage (as assemblage). Still don't know how I put that into a verse somewhere, but it'll come to me. Perhaps.
You say the loveliest things, and I blush. Thankful.
rachel
Your table is lovely as always, no matter the size. It sounds like you enjoyed a elegant and intimate yet festive Thanksgiving. Ours included our new son-in-law's sister, her husband and daughter. We were thankful to add them to our family Thanksgiving and hope this will be our new tradition. Thank you for your blog.
ReplyDeleteHello slf,
DeleteThank you for your kind comment on my blog (so glad you are enjoying it) and on our little table which we truly enjoyed using and will do so again. It was the perfect size for our little family of three.
How wonderful that you had so many at your table, and that the extended family enjoyed it as much as you. Yes, a new tradition hopefully.
Dinner in front of a fire seems so English and lovely.
ReplyDeleteHope you had a very nice day and evening.
Thank you, Lisa, it was a wonderful evening and once our friends came over, it spilled over into the wee hours of the following morning. Always a good indicator or of how well things are going I suppose.
DeleteI never considered eating by the fireside particularly English, but now that you've mentioned it, yes, I suppose it is. All those draughty English houses (that would be drafty in America) require one to wrap up and stay warm by the fireplace.
I hope that you too enjoyed your day. I'm sure you did.