In the eight years that David and I have been together, we’ve never had our own full-grown Christmas tree. Now that our daughter is almost three, we decided that this would be the year. We want to start laying the foundation for more Spritzer Leyba family holiday traditions, starting with this one.

I have this idea in my head that all of the ornaments on our tree will be handmade. It seemed like such an innocent idea: a handmade holiday focusing on the process and tradition rather than the commercialization of the holidays.

Then I did a mental calculation as to how many ornaments we’d need and, while I may in fact be over my head, I am completely positive and excited about this project. Giddy, even. We’re having such fun working on our ornaments.

Some of the ornaments will be quite easy: dried orange slices (shown here on our mini tree last year), paper chains, and popcorn garlands.

Other decorations are more labor intensive.

We’ve been hard at work cutting, sewing, gluing, painting, coloring, sequent and glittering ornaments.

Several are done and many, many more are on the way!

With Hannukah and Christmas fast approaching, we’ve been busy printing out and cutting holiday gift tags. (A perfect task for an almost three year old who loves practicing with her scissors!)

Here are some of the holiday tags that we’re using this year that you can download for free, print and use too!

– Free Printable Wintry Holiday Gift Tags
– Paper Crave Printable Holiday Gift Tags
– Tagged and Ready for Giving
– Holiday Bird Tags (other designs here)

Not only do they make excellent gift tags, but Miss Leyba enjoyed incorporating them into collages too!

We cooked.

We washed dishes.

We ate.

We loved it.

Such a special (delicious!) day.

Our menu:
Harcourt verts with garlic and almonds
Mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, and baked potatoes
Cranberry-apple corn bread stuffing (DELICIOUS!) – recipe here
Stuffed Dover sole
Mushroom gravy
Cranberry sauce

I feel grateful for so much this Thanksgiving day.

Grateful for my best friend who I met eight years ago today (yep, at a Thanksgiving dinner!)!

For my happy, brilliant, independent daughter who brings such joy to our lives!

For our dear friends and their wonderful children (too many to show photos of them all here!)!

For our supportive and loving families!

For our health!

For so very much. (I feel humbled and moved by how lucky we are!)

These days I’m also really appreciating the everyday things:

The plentiful array of local organic food available here in Northern California.

My daily cup (or three!) of decaf English Breakfast tea.

Great thrift stores that benefit a worthy cause and allow us to budget and be more environmentally friendly.

A cozy warm bed that fits us all, even when our daughter decides to sleep horizontally between us!

A fantastic library system that provides us with books, music and movies.

A plentiful garden in which we’ve toiled, learned and shared together what it means to grow our own food.

This blog that has been a tremendous joy in my life, through which we’ve documented our daughter growing up!

You, dear readers, for following along with us and adding your voice in the comments! We feel truly grateful to share our lives with you.

Hope you have a meaningful, tasty Thanksgiving day.

Now please excuse me as I’ve got some cooking to do!

Here we go! We’re gearing up for Thanksgiving.

Each year I so enjoy the ritual of cooking for Thanksgiving: refining the menu, making the master shopping list, doing the shopping, starting the cooking, realizing we’re missing ingredients (it’s only gotten worse with age!), heading to the store, cooking some more, savoring the time spent cooking together as a family and the delicious meal we create and share.

So, we’ve planned the menu and shopped.

We’re now ready to start cooking. First up, making stock and cornbread for tomorrows stuffing.

Here’s my little helper, excited to help and dressed to cook:

Miss Leyba loves wearing fun costumes. After already getting dressed for the day, she decided she needed to wear a swimsuit on top. Why not?! I think it makes the outfit.

Excuse us, we’ve got some cooking to do.

One of the perks of living near the ocean is the fog that rolls in during most evenings, a buffer from the ocean that keeps us warm in the winter and cool in the summer. (On those sumer days when there’s no fog, we know it will be a very hot day.) This is the view we wake up to each morning:

Each and every time I look out the window and see the fog (before it burns off for the day) I think about this scene in the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice:

Stunning.

In our Northern California life, autumn arrives in November with grapevine leaves changing colors. Never mind the 60 and 70 degree temperatures during the day, it’s starting to get chilly at night and the leaves are responding.

This colorful spread only lasts for a few weeks before the rain washes the leaves down or the automated vine cutting machines move in and trim the branches (I know, how unromantic).

I try to savor every moment as I drive about town this month.

I think that spread of yellow, orange and red is rather spectacular. It may not compare to the New England autumns that David and I grew up with or the transformation of Aspen groves in Colorado that we grew to love, but it feels like our version of fall, in this temperate California climate without real seasons, and we’ll take it!