It’s been a wonderful Thanksgiving week. My best friend came for the weekend before, and having her here was a balm for my soul.

She held my child so I could do things around the house, made me one of the best sandwiches I’ve had in a while, and cleaned and organized my house for me whenever I put Michael down for a nap.

The evenings were filled with wine and games and deep conversations and ridiculous jokes. I laughed and I cried, and felt more alive than I had in a while. I am so grateful for her friendship.

My siblings flew home for Thanksgiving on Saturday too, and I was able to host my entire family at my house for the first time.

I made a purple sweet potato soup that turned out more vibrant and beautiful than I anticipated. I had made it with regular sweet potatoes before, but never purple ones: now I have a new favorite dish.

Guests began arriving Wednesday, and we had a delightful meal together (a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving) and a blind scotch tasting (which made the evening games a lot more entertaining).

Thanksgiving at our house is always a huge and communal affair. I think we had a total of twenty-four people this year.

This year, I made the pumpkin pies and my spiced red wine cranberry sauce, and Jake made the dinner rolls.

We also have a yearly tradition of taking photos every Thanksgiving. It’s a great way to get an updated family photo for the Christmas cards! We have a few nice ones that I’m saving for our Christmas card, but I love these more candid ones of us.

I finished Michael’s Thanksgiving sweater just in time: I frantically knit the last sleeve and wove in my ends while Michael took his morning nap, and did a quick steam block to smooth the stitches.

It was my first ever colorwork project, and I’m quite proud over how it turned out. There are a few tension mistakes but otherwise I count it a success. It fits him perfectly.

Michael got to try his first bites of Thanksgiving dinner: I think his favorite was the whipped cream.

Thanksgiving is often a complicated holiday: not only because of its origins in things I disagree with (colonization and Puritanism) but also because our culture’s emphasis on family can leave some out in the cold. Often the “nuclear family” is put on a pedestal as the highest good.

Family is wonderful and beautiful and important. It is something to be preserved and cherished. But we should not limit our understanding of homes to a nuclear family. Thanksgiving is a time to remember and include those who might have a complicated relationship with their families, or too much distance between them and their families, or have no families. For these people, we are called to be their family.

One of the things I love most about Thanksgiving is how it resurrects the virtues of gratitude and hospitality in our society. The ancient understanding of hospitality has stuck with me ever since I read Greek mythology in elementary school. For them, hospitality is a virtue because you never know when you could be entertaining gods in disguise.

As Christians, our homes and tables should always be open to all, because we know that each and every person is an icon of Christ. We don’t have to wonder if we’re entertaining gods in disguise: we know that by serving each other, we serve Christ. Every meal can be a Thanksgiving meal: a chance to open our tables to our fellow man and our hearts to the virtues of gratitude and hospitality.

So may there always be room for one more person at our tables, and may we take these virtues of gratitude and hospitality forward with us beyond Thanksgiving Day.