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Another Thanksgiving in California

For Thanksgiving in 2020, we did our first California Thanksgiving in several years, and prior to that we did the child-free thing of just going out to fancy restaurants on Thanksgiving. But when we got the townhouse back east, we started to celebrate in Philadelphia with our extended family. The pandemic made for quite the disruptive change, and that continued this year. I didn’t expect this year to also be in California, but without the kids vaccinated, we didn’t want to take the risk of traveling. Dinner at home, it is!

In the run-up to Thanksgiving, Adam and I did some toddler art. With Hanukkah arriving the same long weekend as Thanksgiving, I also had my hands full preparing for the start of gifts on Sunday night. Our au pair decided to take the opportunity of a four day weekend to go on a road trip with some friends, so as we sat down to dinner, it was just the four of us.

Given how seamless it was last year, we went with the same diner food again, but had our family dinner at 5PM instead of the afternoon to work around the nap schedules of TWO kids this time. It was again nice to just heat up the food instead of cooking ourselves, but honestly even that was a bit of a strain on my energy. Having two kids under three continues to be an exhausting experience, especially during four-day weekends.

It was little Aaron’s first Thanksgiving, and being the I’ll-eat-anything eater he currently is, he thoroughly enjoyed every dish offered up to him. Adam is growing pickier, but we did manage to get him to eat enough healthy food before letting him go to town on the bread.

It was nice to have this experience of a dinner with just the four of us, but I’m really looking forward to next year in Philadelphia again. At our last family Thanksgiving there, Adam was the only child. Now, there are four young kids in the family! 2022 will definitely be a noisier Thanksgiving, and I can’t wait.