by Judy Handley | Nov 29, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 333: Family Thanksgiving Celebration
Date: Saturday, November 29, 2025
Weather: Sunny and Windy; High Temp 43, Low 29 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Heather, Jed, Jonah, and Ollie returned from Vermont around 5:30 this evening, but the turkey breast in the oven, and arrived here by 7 pm for our family Thanksgiving celebration. It was wonderful being together and giving thanks.
I spent my day attending the Saturday Rally on the Green and then baking pies and preparing the sides to add to the turkey breast for our Thanksgiving dinner. I stuck with all the traditional dishes … stuffing, mashed potatoes, Mark’s cranberry salad, Brussels sprout slaw with pomegranate seeds, and for dessert, pumpkin pie and chocolate pudding pie with homemade whipped cream. Having Mark’s cranberry salad always assures that he is here with us. He started making this cranberry salad for Thanksgiving in the 1970’s. It is a recipe from the 1973 Edition of The Rodale Cookbook. I even know the page by heart, page 120. That’s 50 years of cranberry salad tradition. And it is still being made in the same Tupperware plastic mold!
by Judy Handley | Nov 28, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 332: Not for the Reasons We Remember
Date: Friday, November 28, 2025
Weather: Sunny, Windy, Colder; High Temp 44, Low 32 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
On his day after Thanksgiving, the weather was beautiful, but we have a gale warning until early tomorrow morning. That wind made 43 degrees feel like 33 degrees. So, this was an inside workday. I have nothing of importance to report, so I am going to copy below Heather Cox Richardson’s November 26 history lesson from her Letters from an American post. I read her letter every morning and I think many of you do as well. But in case you missed this one, it gives a history of Thanksgiving Day that is important to remember. It became an official holiday during the Civil War and because of the Civil War, not because of that first Thanksgiving with the Indigenous Americans and the Pilgrims in 1621. If you haven’t read it, it is worth the read.
November 26, 2025 Letters from an American
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
Thanksgiving is the quintessential American holiday…but not for the reasons we generally remember.
The Pilgrims and the Wampanoags did indeed share a harvest celebration together at Plymouth in fall 1621, but that moment got forgotten almost immediately, overwritten by the long history of the settlers’ attacks on their Indigenous neighbors.
In 1841 a book that reprinted the early diaries and letters from the Plymouth colony recovered the story of that three-day celebration in which ninety Indigenous Americans and the English settlers shared fowl and deer. This story of peace and goodwill among men who by the 1840s were more often enemies than not inspired Sarah Josepha Hale, who edited the popular women’s magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book, to think that a national celebration could ease similar tensions building between the slave-holding South and the free North. She lobbied for legislation to establish a day of national thanksgiving.
And then, on April 12, 1861, southern soldiers fired on Fort Sumter, a federal fort in Charleston Harbor, and the meaning of a holiday for giving thanks changed.
Southern leaders wanted to destroy the United States of America and create their own country, based not in the traditional American idea that “all men are created equal,” but rather in its opposite: that some men were better than others and had the right to enslave their neighbors. In the 1850s, convinced that society worked best if a few wealthy men ran it, southern leaders had bent the laws of the United States to their benefit, using it to protect enslavement above all.
In 1860, northerners elected Abraham Lincoln to the presidency to stop rich southern enslavers from taking over the government and using it to cement their own wealth and power. As soon as he was elected, southern leaders pulled their states out of the Union to set up their own country. After the firing on Fort Sumter, Lincoln and the fledgling Republican Party set out to end the slaveholders’ rebellion.
The early years of the war did not go well for the U.S. By the end of 1862, the armies still held, but people on the home front were losing faith. Leaders recognized the need both to acknowledge the suffering and to keep Americans loyal to the cause. In November and December, seventeen state governors declared state thanksgiving holidays.
New York governor Edwin Morgan’s widely reprinted proclamation about the holiday reflected that the previous year “is numbered among the dark periods of history, and its sorrowful records are graven on many hearthstones.” But this was nonetheless a time for giving thanks, he wrote, because “the precious blood shed in the cause of our country will hallow and strengthen our love and our reverence for it and its institutions…. Our Government and institutions placed in jeopardy have brought us to a more just appreciation of their value.”
The next year, Lincoln got ahead of the state proclamations. On July 15 he declared a national day of Thanksgiving, and the relief in his proclamation was almost palpable. After two years of disasters, the Union army was finally winning. Bloody, yes; battered, yes; but winning. At Gettysburg in early July, Union troops had sent Confederates reeling back southward. Then, on July 4, Vicksburg had finally fallen to U. S. Grant’s army. The military tide was turning.
President Lincoln set Thursday, August 6, 1863, for the national day of Thanksgiving. On that day, ministers across the country listed the signal victories of the U.S. Army and Navy in the past year and reassured their congregations that it was only a matter of time until the United States government put down the southern rebellion. Their predictions acknowledged the dead and reinforced the idea that their sacrifice had not been in vain.
In October 1863, President Lincoln declared a second national day of Thanksgiving. In the past year, he declared, the nation had been blessed.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, he wrote, Americans had maintained their laws and their institutions and had kept foreign countries from meddling with their nation. They had paid for the war as they went, refusing to permit the destruction to wreck the economy. Instead, as they funded the war, they had also advanced farming, industry, mining, and shipping. Immigrants had poured into the country to replace men lost on the battlefield, and the economy was booming. And Lincoln had recently promised that the government would end slavery once and for all. The country, he predicted, “with a large increase of freedom,” would survive, stronger and more prosperous than ever. The president invited Americans “in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands” to observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving.
In 1863, November’s last Thursday fell on the 26th. On November 19, Lincoln delivered an address at the dedication of a national cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He reached back to the Declaration of Independence for the principles on which he called for Americans to rebuild the severed nation:
”Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Lincoln urged the crowd to take up the torch those who fought at Gettysburg had laid down. He called for them to “highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
The following year, Lincoln proclaimed another day of Thanksgiving, this time congratulating Americans that God had favored them not only with immigration but also with the emancipation of formerly enslaved people. “Moreover,” Lincoln wrote, “He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions.”
In 1861, Americans went to war to keep a cabal from taking control of the government and turning it into an oligarchy. The fight against that rebellion seemed at first to be too much for the nation to survive. But Americans rallied and threw their hearts into the cause on the battlefields even as they continued to work on the home front for a government that defended democracy and equality before the law.
And in 1865, at least, they won.
Happy Thanksgiving.
by Judy Handley | Nov 27, 2025 | Cape Cod, USA |
2025 Life Logs, Day 331: 25 Years of Thanksgiving
Date: Thursday, November 27, 2025
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 53, Low 42 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Most Thanksgiving Day’s in my life have been celebrated with family, but today I had Thanksgiving at the home of a neighbor. We are friendly, but not friends, and it was a very strange experience for me. The strange feeling was not because I have specific Thanksgiving traditions that I need to follow, other than making Mark’s cranberry salad. It was just that I was not with the people I love. So, for however many Thanksgivings I have remaining in my life, I will make sure that I am with family or close friends.
When I walked home late this afternoon from the neighbor’s house, I started thinking about just where I have spent Thanksgiving Day over the past 25 years. I went down that rabbit hole and three hours later I emerged with the answer. I have spent 3 of the past 25 years in Concord, New Hampshire, 3 in Florida with Mark’s family, 4 in Puerto Rico with Justin and family, 2 in North Carolina with my sister Patsy, and 2 in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the home of Jed’s Aunt Sue and Uncle John. And I have spent 6 of the 25 years having Thanksgiving dinner here in Falmouth with Heather and Jed and boys. Some of my favorite memories of the years in Falmouth include 2021 when Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco flew up from Puerto Rico and instead of observing the traditional Thanksgiving Day, we spent our day in Plymouth standing in solidarity with the indigenous people of Massachusetts who hold a Day of Mourning on this day. Then the next day we had what the grandkids called a fabulous, fun, Friday family feast. In 2020, our ‘pandemic pod’ family gathered for the occasion. This included Heather, Jed, and the boys, me, and the Simpkins family—Mike, Grace, and their two boys, Robert and Joey. In 2019, we had turkey, but Jed also whipped up a fabulous mushroom wellington to add a vegetarian alternative to our feast. And we had oysters, which is a Goldstone tradition. In 2018, we had Mr. Turkey for dinner. He was a turkey that Sam and Jonah earned at a Boy Scout turkey shoot. They each won one, so we ate Mr. Turkey and gave the other one to the Falmouth Service Center.
That leaves the 5 years Mark and I spent in various places on our sail around the world. The first one of those was in the Chesapeake Bay just after we left. Justin traveled down to Solomon’s Island to surprise us with a Thanksgiving Day visit in 2005. In 2006, we were treated to a Thanksgiving Dinner at the Opua Cruising Club in New Zealand. They had a tradition of inviting boats who were laying over there for their summer to bring a dish to share and come together in their clubhouse. I never thought to ask why they had an American Thanksgiving in New Zealand, but I think we were 1 of 4 American couples that year. All the rest were from all around the world and we all enjoyed New Zealand turkey. In 2007, were in Bundaberg, Australia, and we invited two other couples to have dinner on Windbird. The following two Thanksgivings, 2008 and 2009 were both spent aboard Windbird in the Langkawi Yacht Club on Rebok Island in Malaysia. And in 2010 we were in South Africa and just completed a 4 day safari in Kruger National Park. We were with friends, Lynne and Ed Kirwin, and we had Thanksgiving dinner at a Portuguese-Mozambican restaurant in the mountains of the northern province of Mapumalanga in the town of Graskop. That was definitely the most unusual Thanksgiving dinner. We certainly did not have turkey that year! And I really enjoyed another unusual Thanksgiving dinner with Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco in 2023, when instead of turkey, we had Pernil which is Puerto Rican seasoned roast pork. It was so tender and delicious.
I have had many Thanksgiving Day adventures, but the one I cherish most was in 2015 when the whole family was together in Puerto Rico. It is the only Thanksgiving that Mark and I ever had with our whole family together … Heather, Jed, Sam, Jonah, Ollie, and Justin, Jo, Ziggy and Coco.
At one of the Thanksgiving dinners at Heather and Jed’s when the boys were younger, we went around the table sharing something for which we were grateful. Jonah answered, “The whole universe.” I’m with Jonah. Happy Thanksgiving!
by Judy Handley | Nov 26, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 330: Quiet Day
Date: Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Weather: Overcast, Light Rain; High Temp 51, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
It was overcast with light rain today, but it felt warm outside. So I did a little more garden clean up, had a few phone calls that were lengthy, and otherwise just didn’t get a lot done. One of the highlights of the day was delivering a full Thanksgiving dinner that Heather had put together for Belonging to Each Other’s home for homeless women. Heather and family headed to Stowe, Vermont around noon today, but the turkey she roasted, the pumpkin pie, and bags of other food needed to be delivered at 5 pm. I volunteered to do that and am really glad I did. It was so wonderful to see how very grateful the women were to receive everything they need to put together a Thanksgiving feast. I believe the Falmouth Service Center donated the big bag of vegetables. So, it was a community effort that was obviously truly appreciated.
Heather, Jed, Jonah, and Ollie made it to Stowe. Heather texted that everyone was in good spirits despite a little rain tonight. Hopefully that doesn’t spoil their day on the slopes tomorrow.
Here’s hoping all of you have a great Thanksgiving Day. And I hope you are joining a nationwide effort to buy nothing from Amazon, Target, or Home Depot from Black Friday through Cyber Monday. If you have to buy, please buy locally. I got my notice from Amazon this evening letting me know my Amazon Prime services ended as of today. I cancelled my membership a couple of weeks ago, but I guess it was valid through today. The email from them was like a gut punch. I am truly going to miss Amazon’s convenient shopping, but we all need to let Jeff Bezos know that kowtowing to an authoritarian government is not okay. Money talks, so use your buying power to let your voice be heard.
by Judy Handley | Nov 25, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 329: Getting Ready for Winter
Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Weather: Overcast with Increasing Wind in the PM; High Temp 51, Low 49 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
It was warm enough today to do a job that I should have done weeks ago. I have lots of outside hoses that needed to be coiled up and stored for the winter, so that was done today. It is going to be even a little warmer tomorrow, but it is supposed to rain all day. Then the temperature drops to the 30’s and 40’s. Hoses don’t coil very easily or at all when it is that cold, so I am happy I got that done today. My outside picnic table sits on an outdoor rug. Last year the Woodin’s gave me a second rug that has seen better days, so I put it out in the winter and store the good one in the basement. So, I did that today as well. I did not get to do garden clean up, but if there are breaks in the rain tomorrow, I can work on that.
Heather called just before noon asking if I would like to go to the holiday Farmer’s Market. I was head out the door to deliver checks to the library when she called, so I said I’d pick her up after my side trip to the library. This last outdoor market of the season was a little sparse, but I came home with Brussels sprouts, turnips with beautiful greens, and some kale. Heather was searching for locally grown cranberries, but no one had those. I will continue that search tomorrow as we need them for our Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday when the Goldstones return from Vermont.
Later in the afternoon I was headed out to pick Ollie up after school and take him to a saxophone lesson at the high school when my neighbor Andy, hailed me down. Andy and I are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but we ignore that. He wanted to know if I had plans for Thanksgiving dinner. I replied that I did not since I am having Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday when Heather and family get home from skiing/snowboarding in Vermont. He is cooking dinner his family and I said I would be delighted to join them. I was looking forward to a quiet day at home and almost said no. Then I thought, what a Grinch I am, saying no to a neighborly invitation. So that’s what I am doing for Thanksgiving.
I also worked on developing a spreadsheet of all of the ideas and people who volunteered to help or have an interest in various areas of Indivisible Falmouth. We collected the information last night and I volunteered to put it into a spreadsheet. It will be a good rainy day activity tomorrow. Lots of interest, lots of people willing to help, and wonderful ideas! I am so grateful to live in a town with so many involved people.
