Holiday Magic

As many of us have, I’ve just emerged from five days of stepping outside my daily routine to celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends. I have hosted the celebration at my home for the last twenty-seven years, when the table has been set for anywhere from six to thirty people. We always seem to manage to find room for those who cannot be with their own families—friends of my children from California or Texas or Louisiana; exchange students from Austria or Croatia; German colleagues of my husband who first discovered apple pie and sweet potato casserole at our dining room table. It’s a great joy to me to prepare and share a meal with others that echoes dishes created by the many women who preceded me in the kitchens of my life.

My home since last Wednesday has been filled with sunlight and laughter; the warmth of a woodstove and the quiet of young people curled up on couches reading; the beat of the latest rock group thumping through the floorboards from the rec room in the basement and the energy of fifteen teenagers devouring turkey fajitas and chocolate chip cookies; my husband’s arms around me as we luxuriated in four days of no alarm clocks or early morning commutes.

It was a magical time to slow the often frenetic pace of our lives and acknowledge all the blessings we have—in our children, in each other. Yesterday afternoon, as I emerged covered in twigs and leaf fragments after spending three hours plucking piles of oak leaves from our yard (one of the costs of living in New England), my husband simply embraced me in the middle of the driveway—a thank you for sharing the work and enjoying a glorious day.

It is these moments of peace and gratitude and generosity that are the true magic of long-lasting love.