One of the highlights of this week’s family gathering was teaching my cousin’s kids to play the all-ages TTRPG Magical Kitties Save the Day. I didn’t make a firm commitment, but I did suggest we might be able to revisit our game sometime over Zoom.

Feeling better today, so we’re joining the family Thanksgiving gathering about 20 hours later than planned. Looks like our holiday plans will retain their general shape despite yesterday’s disruption.

Woke up feeling lousy, so now I get to spend the next few hours figuring out if it’s the sort of thing we need to update (i.e., cancel) our Thanksgiving travel plans for.

Hearing Black Friday commercials on French radio reminds me that I’m totally fine with the secularization of religious holidays and that the real problem is the commercialization of our holidays, whether always secular or originally religious.

Le « Black Friday » est déjà désespérant quand il est limité aux États-Unis. Quelle tristesse de me rendre compte combien cet évènement stupide est maintenant répandu ailleurs.

My parents are hosting (almost) everyone from my big family for Thanksgiving this year. Given growing numbers of food preferences and restrictions among us, I wonder whether we’ll have a big inclusive-but-non-traditional Thursday feast or whether dinner gets balkanized.

Humbling read today. link to ‘Thanksgiving is a day of mourning for New England’s Native American tribes : NPR’

Weird Thanksgiving. 1st since 2008 w/o family (b/c COVID) and 1st since 2013 w/o a morning run (b/c return of chronic back issues). Still so much to be grateful for—but also conscious this year how much “being thankful” isn’t quite enough. It helps me better appreciate what I have but doesn’t change what others lack. I could stand to do better with the former, but I have much more work to do for the latter.