After five-plus hours of eating, drinking, talking, laughing, playing Go Fish, watching football, doing puzzles, and other various Thanksgiving traditions, I drove our family of four home from Holland. As the rain fell outside and E.B. White's voice read Charlotte's Web aloud, one by one the others fell asleep, Annie's head tilted far to the left, Jemma's round cheeks flushed pink and scrunched forward, Jason's hands still holding a plate of leftover turkey on his lap even as he snored. I looked to the right, looked in the rearview mirror, thought, Everything that's most precious to me is in this car right now, hurtling towards home, towards a solid month of holiday coziness and cheer.
At home, we piled out of the car, changed into jammies, lit a fire, and watched movies on the couch until the girls went to bed. And now the fire's down to its embers, I'm on the couch with holiday issues of cooking magazines and a glass of porter, thankful for the big things (family, friends, health, home) and the little things, too, like watching my children sleep in the car on a November afternoon.
For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
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