Tag Archives: Thanksgiving dinner

Jan15

Thanksgiving, 2023

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Friday, 17-Nov-2023 through Sunday, 26-Nov-2023


A few years back, I started up a rotation for Thanksgiving – Massachusetts, Arizona, Friends, repeat. 2020 was “Massachusetts”, in a virtual sense… 2021 was a flight down to Arizona for a lovely high-desert turkey dinner, and then 2022 found me driving down to Sacramento for a dinner that couldn’t be beat. This year, I flew out East for an equally unbeatable meal… combined well with a week of family and friends!


It’s hard to summarize an entire week in a blog, without rambling on too long or simplifying it to the point of missed joy… but I’ll try, keeping it short and sweet so as to not steal time and energy from the other posts and photos that deserve posting and attention.

So let’s see…

I flew out early – taking the full week to visit with everyone in Medway. I worked remotely, with many thanks to my sister for loaning me her work from home setup while she was in the office. It was lovely – and I definitely understand why so many people are so protective of their freedom to work remotely. On top of the joy of just relaxing and working all under the same roof… My friend Bri flew out to join us! This was her first year joining us, and it was awesome to be able to bring her along and share some of the Eigner family Thanksgiving fun with her!



I got to meet up with friends! Dillon and Liz, getting to have a lovely mid-workday lunch, and see their awesome new home, along with hitting my first climbing gym ever with Daniel and Bri! Turns out, the grades there are surprisingly similar to those in Portland… which is neat, since a few years back they were radically different. Advantage of a more interconnected world, maybe?



My Mom, Bri, Hannah, and I had a spa night! It was excellent, and led to some… slightly horrifying… group photos. No regrets, and they’ll make excellent Halloween decorations for next year.



Thanksgiving itself was in Amherst, at my Aunt and Uncle’s house. I got to spend some excellent time with my cousin and her kids, and even let him fly the drone around a bit! Amazing food, excellent times… It really was a gift to be able to see everyone in person and spend time just relaxing and catching up.



Second Thanksgiving in Medway was, also unsurprisingly, glorious! My sister cooked up a storm, with assistance of course, making a stellar second meal along with dangerously decadent desserts.



We took a hike to the Stoney Brook, the Audubon society camp where I spent summers for ages and ages. It’s just as lovely as I remember it being, and was a great walk (literally) down memory lane.


I brought the drone along! As mentioned, my cousin’s son has a blast flying it around… and it did a pretty good job of getting a few aerial photos of everyone!

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Dec11

A Thanksgiving adventure – Thanksgiving itself!

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A Thanksgiving adventure – Thanksgiving itself!

Thanksgiving is going to be different this year. This is my first year being single in half a decade, and thanks to the COVID Pandemic it’s also the first year that I can’t travel, and don’t have any friends still in town. I’m flying solo, have a ton of vacation to burn, and am feeling energetic...

Thursday, 26-Nov-2020


This year sucks.

I mean, okay. It doesn’t, actually. I’ve had some amazing personal growth, experiences, and I’m actually doing pretty okay, all things considered.

But certain aspects of this year really do suck. Like, they suck so much.



I love Thanksgiving. I love seeing everyone, feeding everyone, and I love the fact that it’s so tradition-oriented… I don’t have to wonder what I should be cooking, or what I should be doing… it’s pretty straight forward. Make a turkey, some stuffing, eat it all while talking with friends and family I haven’t seen in ages, and then nap on the couch.

Ideally by a fire. Probably after having a glass of some interesting drink.


But this year… that can’t quite happen.

At my office, we have a map out in the front of the building. States are marked either green or red, depending on how many positive COVID tests they have, as a percentage of all tests administered. Over the weeks, the map’s gone from mostly green, to mixed, to a bit of red, and now it’s almost completely red.

When someone visits a state marked red, that’s okay… but it’s one more tick-mark on the checklist of “do I have to isolate for 14 days?”… and with all the other issues we’re having that means that if I left Oregon, and saw anyone else, I couldn’t go back into the office for at least 14 days.

My friends in Portland were off with their families, extended well past my little social bubble.

So, I’m home alone for Thanksgiving, for the first time ever.

So I cooked an amazing meal, set up a video call, and visited virtually with as many family members as I could 🙂

My meal was, admittedly, 95% pre-bought.

I had to cook all of it, of course, and I did make a few of the courses myself, but the majority of the dishes were bought from the Multnomah County Whiskey Library. Not… quite the place I’d expected to get a Thanksgiving dinner… but then again, I’d kind of expected to be having Thanksgiving with friends in Oklahoma or California this year. Or, at least the most recent plan of going to visit my Dad and StepMom is Arizona.

But plans and expectations aside, I made do, and had an excellent time.

Turkey, stuffing, squash, brussel sprouts, everything was laid out and enjoyed while chatting with everyone over Zoom. You know, it was really nice. And I’ll admit… being able to just clean everything up quickly afterward, and then pass out on the couch by the fire, after a nice Thanksgiving walk?

There are some traditions that you can keep anywhere, and anytime.