This week, all across the United States, families are beginning to gather for their annual Thanksgiving get together, friends are gathering for Friendsgiving, and some are just happy and thankful for the solitude of a very quiet day alone, a day where everyone and everything seem to stop in their tracks and just sit.

A day of gratitude and feasting.

Thanksgiving is a harvest festival, a day of celebrating all the life we have lived over the past year and the foods that made it through the summer and landed on our tables. It’s the first of the three big feasts of the holiday season. Traditionally it is made up of roasted turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes or yams, a veg and pumpkin pie. Often times it includes a salad and rolls/bread. For those so inclined it also includes copious amounts of alcohol and football. It’s a day when Americans eat themselves into stupor.

I love spending my Thanksgivings alone now. I make simple vegetarian or vegan food, early in the day, and lay around in my pajamas and watch Christmas and holiday movies on Netflix. Usually I’m housesitting, but over the years I’ve experimented with locations, like the year I thought it was a good idea to be reclusive at Pfeiffer Big Sur Campground State Park down the coast. My thinking was that I would have the campground all to myself and I could do a mini-gratitude-retreat … but on the contrary it was noisy and crowded with RVs and kids running through my camp and one night in the middle of the night the rangers had to come in to arrest a group who were shooting off rifles into the night sky.

Many years I’ve accepted invitations from friends and family to join them and I always take them up on it. My years contain sixty-two Thanksgivings. That’s a lot when I think about it. Twenty or so with my family, thirty or so with friends, and ten or so on my own. However I’ve spent it, it’s always been exactly the way it should be.

Full of gratitude.

What about your Thanksgiving memories? Have any you would like to share in the comments below?

All Organic Ingredients in the Thanksgiving Bowl: Mashed Potatoes, Roasted Carrots, Broccoli, Garnet Yams, Corn, and a Mushroom Melange/Saute with Onion and Herbs.