What a wonderfully cozy day.  We’re in between family Thanksgiving celebrations, my family yesterday and Joe’s today,  I’m making a wonderful mushroom tart, a pie is almost ready to go in, and I’m finished my Drops Jacket and contentedly picking buttons from my bin while the sweater dries. 

I’m listening to a documentary on the radio, Sam’s taking a bubble bath, Meg will arrive shortly, all bundled in wool from outside,  and our whole home smells of marjoram and thyme. The kettle’s about to whistle and I’m poking through the stash looking for a little something to knit this evening.  I feel so lucky really, and the only thing that’s not quite right is that I miss Amanda, and for the first time since she left,  wish she was home from Australia.

It’s fitting to me somehow, to remember the first North American Thanksgiving (and actually, the first English prayer service), when explorer (and pirate) Martin Frobisher stood on Baffin Island in 1578 and gave thanks for the for the safe crossing of the Atlantic and an understandable relief at having survived arctic weather. He was, as makes perfect sense if you’ve been anywhere near any of those places.. overwhelmed with gratitude and promptly had a feast of Thanksgiving for having come safely home to shore.  Admittedly, the feast would have been total crap.  They were at the end of a long voyage and I can’t even imagine what sort of stuff was left in the hold of the ship.  Maybe that seems like a feast if you’re really just so glad that you’re not an iceberg ornament.  (Canadians may have had the first thanksgiving, and are truly grateful for the harvest that we find in this big country, but you’ve got to admit that the English colonists who landed at Plymouth nailed the menu way better when they had their first one 43 years later. Seriously.  Corn, squash and pumpkin pie vs dried salt beef, dried peas and crackers?  Stroke of genius.)

It’s hard to compare what they were thankful for compared to what I’m thankful for today. (Gas stove.  Top of my list.) I’m so outrageously spoiled and pampered compared to a bunch of guys standing on a rock in the freezing wind feeling real, sincere thankfulness that their crazy-arse explorer/pirate boss didn’t kill them all that it’s hard to believe.   I’m thankful for the abundant harvest in this country and that I can afford access to it. I’m thankful for the luck of living in such a peaceful and safe place.  I’m thankful that I’ve got a wonderful family and  two daughters home with me and one who’s lucky enough to be travelling.  I’m thankful for mushrooms. (I love mushrooms.)  I’m pretty thankful for beer, coffee and wool.  Mostly though?  I’m grateful for the lifestyle I lead that lets me knit.  Being a knitter is evidence I have time that I don’t have to spend working or trying to make ends meet, and that I have some sum of money that I don’t need for food, or shelter and that’s pretty fortunate.

Happy Thanksgiving my friends.  Go hug some yarn.