You’ve got this. Wherever you are in the prep, know that it will turn out beautifully. It’s already good enough. Already beautiful and wonderful. Right now.
When you welcome family and friends into your home with a gracious and grateful heart, the rest is details. That apple pastry so gorgeous in the pan, can come out and fall apart into a sloppy, gloppy mess. The stuffing may be dry this year. A side dish can be forgotten in the oven or left behind.
Laugh it off and keep on going.
And all will still be wonderful.
No matter what. I promise.
Yes, hosting a family holiday takes planning, time and a lot of work.
Still, the table runner and menu are details. They matter, but aren’t the most important things.
The most important detail to manage is your own stress. I’m speaking from experience here! These are all tips I’m using this year to keep myself and our family relaxed!
Staying Grounded
My husband and I have hosted two Thanksgiving dinners per year for the last several years. I love it — and I can get intensely focused on the details.
He keeps me grounded in what’s most important: Our family is together. What else matters more than that?
This year, I’m staying relaxed and loose. I’ve reflected, talked it over with my friends. By now, I know what works and what I need to do to stay relaxed. I’m determined.
15 Stress-Buster Tips
My 15 tips for battling hosting stress. I’m taping it to the cupboard for easy reference.
Breathe. Pause for just 30 seconds and take the three biggest, deepest breaths you possibly can. You’ll feel better.
Forget about the magazine pictures. Ignore the home décor influencers on Instagram. Don’t compare yourself to big budgets, air-brushed food, professional decorators or talented amateurs. It’s not fair to yourself. Flowers + candles = lovely. Any colors. Any arrangement.
Let go of perfect. Perfect is a killer of creativity and joy. Who wants that?
The house will never be perfectly clean, all at once.
Don’t compare. Do your Thanksgiving your way. Beautifully, uniquely imperfect.
Keep it in perspective. Step back from the to-do lists and tasks for a moment to look at the big picture. If a loved one is in the hospital, you already know what matters most. If you are together and healthy, this is already a great year.
If you have lost a loved one, grief may sneak up and unexpectedly knock you over, even if you were “fine” a minute ago. Holidays seem to sharpen the ache of missing someone, and the first one may be especially awful. Be gentle with yourself. The pain of grief can be like a summer thunderstorm appearing out of nowhere, and unpredictable. Hang on. Let it sweep through. It will pass.
Don’t skip the self-care. Self-care is so important for all of us, especially at holiday time when it’s tempting to skip and say “I don’t have time.” That’s when we need our self-care the most! My three daily must-dos: at least 15 minutes of yoga, a 10-minute free write and a short walk. Every day. Non-negotiable. What are your three daily must-dos?
Let people help. This year, I caught myself turning down help. Then I realized that part of what we do on holidays is celebrate and practice how our family functions. Everybody does their part and the whole of it is better and greater than the sum of its parts. Plus, people like to contribute. I course-corrected. This year, my grown stepsons are each bringing part of the meal. All I had to do was ask. Cool moment.
Thankyou. When someone compliments our home, I have a bad habit of focusing and pointing out that un-done something that bugs me. A compliment requires one response: “Thank you.”
Something to look forward to. I’ll need some crash time this weekend. I’m planning to catch up on the new documentaries about Princess Diana, with a glass of wine, some popcorn and dogs curled up at my feet.
Take a quick break. In-between kitchen tasks, step outside for a minute. A breath of fresh air will do you wonders.
Be as flexible as you can. There will be curve balls. Something will go wrong. Go with the flow.
Keep a sense of humor. Laugh at your mistakes and move on.
Let something go or take a shortcut. I like to use my grandmother’s real silver, which requires polishing. I like to drive out to a favorite family farm for a turkey that had a good life, walking around outside until a few days ago. Both these things are time-consuming, so we may have dessert on paper plates — and the world will keep on spinning.
BONUS:
Drink lots of water. Not too much wine.
Go to bed as early. As early as possible, especially Wednesday night. My plan is to start winding down by 7 p.m. and be in bed by 8.
Music. Music. Music. My Pandora stations are ready to go!
This year, I’m determined to enjoy it all, not rob myself of my own joy over the holiday. This year, my wish for all of us is to dance through Thanksgiving and then carry that grateful and gracious spirit into the rest of the year.
If we pay attention, November’s light washes us in clarity, offering reminders of the lessons of love and loss.
November’s clear light reveals the bones of the landscape. We pare down to the essentials. What must go suddenly becomes clear. Shed the clutter. What is most important, that which must be held and cherished, comes into clearer view.
In our central Pennsylvania valley, rich layers of green and brown, rust, copper and gold, enshroud our fields and ridges.
But the golds. The golds pop. Harvest gold. Pale gold. The gold of rich reminders.
Golden blooms of miscanthus grass in the November sunshine against crystal blue sky.
Quiet, Gentle Light
This week, I had the good fortune to chat with accomplished painters, people who know about light.
What is it about this November light? I asked them.
Well, one painter said, the air holds less moisture now. That thick blanket of humid air August heaps upon us day after day has left. So our view into the distance tends to be clearer.
The sun is lower in the sky, too. Softer. This all makes sense.
The last of the leaves begin their final decay and descent. Loss and letting go is in the air. A fresh layer of nutrients now crunching underfoot. Some won’t bother to fall, remaining brown and crumpled through the winter, their green glory spent.
Listening for Lessons of Memory
To live — to have the good fortune to reach mid-life — is to collect milestone memories, year-by-year, layer upon layer. Perhaps yours also cluster around a single, loaded month?
That’s my November.
November reminds me of long, quiet and soft grey days in the hospital at my dad’s bedside, in a battle with death, pulling and pleading from this side. No. No. No. Stay with us. Not now. Not yet! Pulling. Pulling.
He survived that one.
Here Comes the Sun
November reminds me of letting go of a dying marriage. Done. Let’s free each other of this albatross and be grateful for what we learned, how we grew, and how it led us to the new places we each needed to go — on our own.
Earlier that autumn, while working in the garden I heard my intuition loud and clear. Hunker down girl, it warned.
I listened. For the first time in a long time, I listened. The storm swept through.
No big decisions for me for what turned out to be a painful and remarkable, rich and golden year of growth.
Fifty-one weeks later, I met the love of my life.
The Sun Will Return
November is falling in love with my husband, when the words and melody of “Here Comes the Sun” took over my mental soundtrack, and we had our first Thanksgiving together.
By December, I dreamed I had found a woman buried in the garden. I helped her brush off the soil and rise. I felt more alive than ever, and got the sense she was a part of me — a welcome, life-affirming sign.
Now, my husband and I host our family Thanksgiving dinner together. I get a little intense about it. My husband, as always, is my smooth, glassy lake.
New Family Traditions
As we all sat down in the waning afternoon light to one of those early Thanksgiving meals, I explained how my family begins dinner with a traditional roll toss. One uncle asks for a roll and the other uncle sends it flying over the table.
That year, my older stepson corrected. “Lisa, we’re your family.” My heart melted, and began to spill all over the polished vintage silver, mashed potatoes and mish-mash collection of white dinnerware.
But before I could cry, he sailed a dinner roll across the room to his younger brother.
New traditions.
November reminds me of final family gatherings in the midst of the long goodbye to my dad, as he slowly turned to driftwood before us.
I knew l liked him a lot, and that I liked the lovely shape, color and sweetness of pears. I started to believe he was real, and felt crazy-lucky.
November is pears. The pears on the first, surprise love note my husband mailed to me, after our first date alone at my house that Thanksgiving evening. (Read You Had Me at Pears.)
And the half a canned pear below a rounded dollop of cream cheese and glistening maraschino cherry. All atop a leaf of lettuce. My grandmother’s pear salad.
When I was a kid, I tried hard to listen to the blessing once my aunts and uncles and cousins and mom gathered around my grandparents’ Thanksgiving table.
But I don’t remember the words spoken. What I most remember is the shiny red cherries. Laughter over the roll toss and that first bite of bright cherry, cream cheese and sweet pear, mashed together on my tongue.
Missing You
My intensity about the pears at Thanksgiving can trigger some eye-rolling around here. I’m still searching for just the right salad where the pears can take center stage, without a ton of work that derails the rest of the meal. Maybe this will be the year.
That sense of missing someone comes and goes. All month long.
Yesterday, my mother texted that we had lost a beloved relative to pancreatic cancer. Her message left me sad, hurt for his wife and sons, and relieved for him. May his suffering be over.
Still, I hear her voice the morning my dad died of the same, awful disease. “This is the call,” she said.
Feel it. Breathe. Move forward. Take the next step.
Is the purpose of our lives to be happy all the time?
No.
Morning sun peeking over the clouds above a Central Pennsylvania mountain ridge.
Fully Live, All of It
The mission is to live fully — the sadness, grief, joy, satisfaction, bliss, rage and concern for all that is still so wrong in this world and empathy for all those who suffer.
All of it.
To be kind. Because … what else? And to defy the darkness of the world.
To appreciate the full living. To discern and move ever-closer on our path with purpose.
November washes us with clarifying light and gratitude. Prepares us for the coming darkness. Offers us celebration for the full experience of this life — even the most painful, excruciating parts.
I am deeply grateful for November’s light and reminders.
I wish you the gifts I see in November. The clarity to prune out what should go and make space for new growth, to cultivate and cherish what is most important.
I wish you the soft, gentle and comforting light for your losses. I wish to remind you: Live fully. Feel it all. Breathe. Take the next step through the crunchy leaves.
Early in our courtship, my husband and I hiked into Rothrock State Forest to meet “The Oak Tree.” This very important member of his extended family is a beloved, landmark tree. When our family gathers for reunions, a trek out to The Oak Tree is always among the festivities.
Why this tree? Its size and girth stood it apart from the rest of the forest, so it became a landmark among the hunters in our family decades ago. Judging by that girth, this oak tree is at least 100 years old. Its glory days are behind it, but still it stands. This proper introduction to the The Oak Tree nine springs ago was a very good sign that my husband and I were meant for each other. My name means “of the oak” in French (which is why my company is named Polished Oak Communications). I was hugging trees long before I met my husband — or the rest of his family, now our family.
Oaks are strong, mighty and full of life. If you have the space and can plant ONE tree, an oak is just about the best choice you can make: – Oaks are majestic, among the largest trees on earth and long-lived. – Oaks, willows and cherry trees can host more than 1,400 insect species. This is a good thing! 96% of all the terrestrial bird species in North America rely on insects and other arthropods to feed their young. – Oaks top the list of shrubs and trees that provide habitat for moth and butterfly species at more than 534, according to research from entomologist Doug Tallamy. (A world without butterflies? I shudder.) We’ve only planted one little apple tree since I moved here (into the “Man Cave”) to live with my husband and stepsons. But we need an oak tree here on our property. Definitely. And I’ve figured out just the spot.
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My brother-in-law asked if our oldest had been up to some mischief the night before, maybe messing around with his friends in the dark? He lives just down the hill and we’d run into each other at our small-town post office, on the first Saturday morning of April about eight years ago.
Both boys were teenagers then. Technically and legally, they weren’t yet my stepsons. But I already loved them as my kids.
My younger stepson, then 14, had hosted a few of his buddies for a sleepover the night before, the eve of the opening day of fishing season here in central Pennsylvania. By the time I was awake and at the post office, he and his friends were already at the creek with their fishing poles.
Once the kids arrived at our house, I hovered awhile to order pizza and offer sleeping bags.
But then I’d gone to bed.
The House Rule on Peanut Butter
Why? I asked my brother-in-law.
He’d found his truck handles covered in peanut butter that morning.
Back home, I reported to my husband. We hatched a plan.
When he was back from the creek, we asked our younger fisherman if he knew why we had both organic peanut butter and less-expensive, regular peanut butter.
The organic of course was for eating and the other for — well…?
His face cracked into a smile.
Busted.
Our intention was to send an important message: People are keeping an eye on you, especially in a small town. And we can laugh about a silly prank.
So we added to our rules list: If you’re using peanut butter for pranks, use the cheap stuff.
House Rule: Don’t Burn the House Down
For the record: I am not their mom. They have a mom and she loves them very much.
And they are my kids. All these things are true.
Their dad and I had fallen head-over-heels in love in our early 40s, so I loved these boys before I met them. (Read You Had Me at Pears.)
Then we got to know each other.
They were already teenagers, 15 and 13, well-behaved young men. They knew what their dad expected of them. They lived with their dad half the time and I moved into their house, also known as the “Man Cave.”
There was no guide-book for any of us. We all tiptoed around each other for a long time, and had to figure out how to become family together.
One day their dad and I left to take a walk and just naturally said something like: We’ll be back in an hour. Don’t burn the house down.
And I chimed in: And don’t hurt yourself — or your brother.
That was the beginning of the unwritten “rules list.”
Later, we added the bit about which peanut butter to use when you want to prank someone, preferably an understanding family member, or load mousetraps. Then, after ribbing about the big pocketbook I carry and the number of lost keys and sunglasses that had been found at the bottom, we added to the list: If you lose anything, look in Lisa’s pocketbook.
Your Heart Walking Around Outside Your Body
Somewhere in there, I became a parent. They were growing up so fast and the world is so big and dangerous.
I told a friend how scary it was to love someone this much, how nervous I felt for their safety every time they went out the door, especially as they started driving. My friend, not yet a parent, said she’d heard it described like your heart is walking around all day outside your body.
Exactly.
I mean, driving.
One school morning soon after my younger stepson started driving, a friend texted that a high school student had been life-flighted to a trauma hospital after a car wreck on the way to school. She didn’t know who it was, except not her son. Ours? I didn’t know.
Those unbearable minutes of not knowing, when it feels like my heart has shot up and frozen itself behind my ears and I can barely breathe. I was stirring supper on the stove when he arrived home that night, asked about the injured kid and mumbled something about trying hard not to throw my arms around him and never let him leave the house again.
“What’s for dinner?” he asked. We moved on.
My husband said later and many times since: They have to leave the house, hon. They grow up. That’s the deal.
My Rules, Your Rules, Our Rules
Did they need our list of rules?
Probably not, in retrospect. But I did. Our obvious and silly rules were my way to establish my role as someone new in their lives and home. A second adult and parental figure in their dad’s house with rule-making authority, who would not abuse it.
These kids already had a great base and, if anything, they just needed an occasional friendly, funny reminder of what was expected of them. My husband’s approach to parenting is to show them and trust them, not tell them. I had to learn on the fly. How will they know if we don’t talk about it?
As they reached new life-stages, our house rules became a vehicle for conversation and reminders.
I overheard a dad at a baseball game say to his son: Don’t do anything stupid, and you’re old enough by now to know what that means.
That went on the list with the not hurting anyone, or our home, the pocketbook and the peanut butter.
Watch Out for Stupid
The morning my older stepson left for college, I had about 25 different things I wanted to say to him.
I picked the most important one, and he seemed relieved. I told him he had a good head on his shoulders and made good decisions. All true. And sometimes it’s really easy to get caught up in the bad decisions of other people. Also true.
So — Watch out for the stupid things other people do. Onto the rules list.
With my older stepson at college and my younger a high school senior, I announced our rules list would officially become one simple, number one rule: Come home safe.
As they leave for ordinary and milestone events, like the prom, graduations and road trips I remind them: Rule #1, Come Home Safe.
By the Grace of God
Because kids are going to take risks.
We were all kids once who by the grace of God survived our youth. If some of us think back for too long, we might really scare ourselves.
I remember those times I found myself beyond my limits and somehow made it home safely. That night in Maine when I sped down the twisty-turny road to the beach with a bunch of friends after a party in my new pickup truck, with a friend standing up “surfing” in the truck bed. What seemed like a not-so-bad idea at the time easily could have turned tragic.
We all know those moments of poor judgment often lead to terrible, real, life-ending things. I do not know why some people survive those dangerous moments and others do not.
I don’t know why sometimes parents can do everything “right,” the best they can, everything they can think of and somehow the kids can’t make it home.
One Big Rule: Come Home Safe
Maybe our rules list had to get simpler because their lives were getting so much more complicated. If you find yourself in a bad situation, just focus on survival. Just get home.
If you ever get to a point where it all seems impossibly broken and you don’t know where to start: Come home safe. Everything else can be worked out.
If ever you are worried about being shamed or judged or yelled at … Don’t. Just get home. We will listen with love. No matter what, we will fall to our knees and be grateful you are alive.
Come home safe.
There is always time to make things right. You’ll figure it out (and we’ll be here.)
Keep Them Safe, Please
Sure, there were probably more peanut butter incidents and plenty of things I don’t know about. We’re not naïve. Our sweet little antique town, though full of beauty, family and love, baseball and cornfields, also holds plenty of danger and lots of pain.
Our oldest is married now, and with his wife building a home base of their own. (And, they can still come home if ever they need to.) Our youngest graduates college in less than two months.
Our boys became fine young men, navigating this pandemic we could barely imagine even as it unfolded. My worrying over the year has dulled into some tension held tight and deep in my body that won’t fully release until this is all “over” — whatever that exactly means or whenever that exactly happens.
Then, they will be off to the new adventures they’re supposed to be having as they launch their adult lives. Onto the delayed dreams and new plans.
I’ll always worry and pray for their safe passage. I lean into my faith that they are good humans, healthy, solid and well-prepared.
And occasionally — because I need to know that they know how much they are loved — I will remind each one of Rule #1. I know, he’ll say.
If we were standing together beside the fresh grave of your loved one, I would wrap my arms around you and quietly urge you to take the best possible care of yourself in this time of grief.
Be gentle with you and your sad, battered heart. Do what brings you comfort. Whatever it is.
Sleep the extra hour.
Take the long walks
Whenever you can, sneak away from the office and take a hot bubble bath in the middle of the afternoon.
Watch stupid, funny TV, or sad movies. (Grey’s Anatomy was my go-to. Four seasons one year.)
Snuggle up with your dog, or cat.
Call a friend.
Survive the horrible, dark days. Hang on. They will pass.
Your comfort list is different than mine, and that’s OK. Do whatever feels good — just nothing that hurts you or anyone else. No binging a crazy amount of chocolate chip cookies or booze. Be safe.
Be gentle with yourself
And let it out. It hurts, dammit. It’s OK to cry. It’s OK to be angry. Do what you can to not let that stuff stay bottled up inside, where it can become poison.
The best way to be of service to someone who is grieving is to listen or simply be still and quiet beside that person. There’s nothing to say that will fix it.
This loss won’t hurt this much forever.
But right now, it just hurts. So much that it may be hard to breathe, or move or even know what to ask for.
So — if you know the person well — you’ll think of a little something to offer to do to solve a problem or show kindness. Quietly drop off some soup and bread. Or rake the leaves in the yard. Watch the kids for awhile. You’ll know.
Strange Times
In one way or another, we’ve all been grieving on some level this whole past year — in our separate, private bubbles. We’re sort of together in this — but really far apart, too.
Long ago, a woman named Lee, in Maine, taught me about grief.
Lee would say we all know in our bones how to grieve our losses. And if everyone else just honors that process and gives it space and time, we’ll be OK.
She was right. I wonder what Lee would say about all this.
I can’t hug or talk to her anymore. And we’re not supposed to hug right now — which strips so many of us from the natural, instinctive ways in which we grieve. A whole layer of loss, unto itself.
This sucks. I’m a hugger. Such a strange time we’re living through.
Blue Would Hug You, Too
Anniversary dates of a loss have a way of knocking you around in unexpected ways.
I thought I got ahead of this March 11 one by reflecting and writing about it earlier this week. I had my head down Thursday, immersed in my work, checking my boxes.
But as the workday ended, I read a kind letter from the head of an academic organization about all we’ve been through together and it unexpectedly touched my heart. Beneath our job titles and labels, we are all human, after all.
Kindness.
Blue, the big dog, my emotional sponge, sensed my sadness.
He whined beside me until I gave into the tears. Of course, he carries on when he wants to be covered up with a blanket, so it could of been that, too.
But I don’t think so. I came down to the floor to sit and hug him. He leaned in with his long, red-brown body and snuck in some kisses, licking my face.
We both feel better now. He’s sleeping soundly. I’m going to make some hot tea on this rainy, warm night and watch and read some of the coverage.
What a year. Maybe some reflecting and grieving together will do us all some good, help us heal. I welcome the collective healing.
