Thanksgiving

We have a 48-hour delay on Thanksgiving here. The kids are in school and any German friends we might want to invite don't have the day off. So many of us have our turkey fest on the weekend. Case in point: we leave in an hour for a neighborhood get together with two other families.

This year on Thanksgiving proper I got to go to the woodshop with Andy while the kids were at school. We didn't work on work, or the house, or travel plans, or administrative stuff. Instead, Andy bought some mahogany and ash planks and spent hours shaping and planing them into the boards he needed.

It was fun to watch. Mike, who runs the woodshop, is an industrial arts teacher who worked in London for years before coming here. He now gets to manage a craft center with rooms of saws, drills, lathes, everything for shaping wood or taking off fingers (Mike is very safety focused).

I watched as, millimeter by millimeter, rough planks became smooth, even boards. Wood grains and pattern popped out. It took hours. So many spiritual implications of watching what it takes to shape something that will be beautiful and strong.

Thursday, I was thankful for wood, the smell of sawdust, and the potential of what things become.

Today, good smells are starting to float from the kitchen. Two ice cream pies are in the freezer and waiting for the chocolate/caramel lattice topping. The turkey is browning, surrounded in the pan by tiny red potatoes brushed with butter.

Why is that nothing makes me miss family and friends faster than cooking more food than we can eat in a week. I miss you all.