Thanksgiving 2020-COVID style

We’ve lived away from Utah for 8ish years now and in that time we’ve only had one Thanksgiving we spent as just our immediate family (New York Thanksgiving because the missionaries cancelled last minute). We’ve been fortunate enough to either travel home or spend the day with our adopted friends/family in each area we’ve lived. 

Thanks to COVID this year, everyone knows we were asked to avoid groups and stay home, if possible. So we did. And I’m surprised just how much I enjoyed it. Travis and I began cooking up a storm the night before, and then spent the bulk of Thanksgiving cooking so we could eat dinner around 3:30. 

It was nice having no stress over messes or the food taking longer than expected, and the weather was so pretty that our boys were able to play outside with a couple of friends for hours while the girls napped; so travis and I was able to just talk and laugh and be together while we cooked. Oh and that morning we even woke up early to start the day with a good workout so we’d know we’d earned the food! 

Everything tasted wonderful and looked beautiful. 

And as an added bonus to enjoying our family time, this year we were also lucky enough to participate in a #givethanks request from the Prophet to post at least one thing we are grateful for each day for 7 days! It was incredible to witnesses social media feeds flooded with gratitude and not ONE negative comment trended on my feed for a week. It was a great way to roll into Thanksgiving and an even better way to Segway into December’s #LightTheWorld program. 

There are so many things I am truly blessed with that I cannot hope to name them all, but for my 7days of gratitude I chose: 

1- Our service men and women 

2- The weather here in the Midwest this year of 2020

3- the positivity of the posts that were trending and flooding the world with the light of Christ 

4- Fresh starts 

5- HEALTH: mental, physical, relationships, etc. 

6- My Savior 

7- My Children 

8- My Travis (yes, I realize that’s 8, not 7, but I went Fri to Fri and ended up with a bonus day)