Turkey’s roasting in the oven and spreading its once-a-year aroma through the apartment.  18 month old Lucy is back home to nap between a morning of 6 grandparents (two on Skype) and a late afternoon meal with her parents and two-thirds of the grandparents.

It’s a little lull in the cooking day for me, Joe and our long-time friends Linda and Robert.  We’ve celebrated Thanksgiving together nearly every year since 1988 when we moved in across the street from in Duluth.

Even though we make many of the same dishes year after year, we try at least a couple different things each time. This time it’s chocolate pecan pie with a gluten-free pecan-coconut crust, made by Sarah specially for me. And Ryan brought lefse, his Norwegian family’s tradition.

Our daughters are in San Francisco with their family of friends there.  We haven’t done Thanksgiving often with them since they went to college. We all agree that being together for Christmas is more important to us even though we truly love Thanksgiving.

I’m feeling grateful for so much.  Family and friends are healthy enough and so far we’ve weathered the recession and some job losses well enough.  New Moon Girls has survived its most difficult financial year ever and we’re feeling hopeful about the future.

There’s also plenty I’m not grateful for but I’ll think about that another time.  Today, the comfortable companionship of old friends and our traditional foods is enough.