"Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is the measure of our gratefulness. And gratefulness is the measure of our aliveness. Are we not dead to whatever we take for granted? Surely to be numb is to be dead." David Steidl-Rast (A Sunday quote from a few weeks ago in my Sacred Ordinary Days planner).

One of my favorite moments of Thanksgiving was when Scott joined me in the morning to prep the turkey. I was giving him step by step directions--rinse the turkey, dry the turkey, etc., and all was going swimmingly until I said, "Separate the skin from the turkey and spread butter around," and my husband of almost twenty-five years just looked at me. It was the look you give when someone tells a joke that is not only unfunny, but verges on inappropriate. That deer-in-the-headlights stare you give because you simply do not know what to say.

I wasn't joking. And I talked him through the spreading of the Thanksgiving Turkey Butter under the Turkey Skin, and all was well.

Another Thanksgiving moment was this...

Sure, the picture appears to be another run of the mill out of focus holiday photo, but when I checked to to see why the picture was dim, I found a smudge of mashed potatoes on the lens (I was in charge of the mashed potatoes this year and got a little overzealous with the mashing), so I call this, "The Thanksgiving Mashed Potato Filter." Which is wonderful. And the fact that this is my first picture of baby Oliver makes it even better.

My picture without the filter is clearly inferior. Oliver would have none of it...