Thanksgiving is an amazing holiday that I missed all the years I lived in Israel. It isn’t just the great food that I enjoy making, it is the fact that it is about giving thanks (and I don’t mean in the religious sense) for all we have and being with family and/or friends.

Unlike many people in our area who have lived here for generations and have huge family dinners, ours is usually small. This year it will be my husband and our youngest two children. Regardless, my husband will fry a big turkey (he hates the smell of turkey baking in the oven), and we will have stuffing, sweet potato pie and green beans. Some years I add a new dish or make an old fashioned labor intense green bean casserole, but these are the staples.

And dessert? Well, that varies from year to year and is often not homemade. Today I picked up a yummy carrot cake with cream cheese icing decorated with a handsome cross-eyed turkey. I can’t wait to dig into that cake. Okay, I’ll confess that I already ate a piece to ensure its quality.

I’ve picked up some of the local traditions of our area in the years we’ve lived here. For example, we eat our Thanksgiving dinner in the early afternoon. To this day my mother is horrified at the thought of having a big holiday meal before six in the evening, but I’ve learned to like it. If the weather is good, we go for a walk after stuffing ourselves and by bedtime no longer feel like the very stuffed turkeys that we ate.

I also make sweet potato pie from a local recipe that I love. In Canada we certainly didn’t add sugar to our sweet potatoes, and boy did we miss out! This dish is divine and guaranteed to please just about every palate.

Not one to get dressed up very often, on Thanksgiving I put on something nice, dab on some makeup and arrive at the table in a festive spirit. With Ella in my life, I have even more fun picking out something snazzy for her to wear. It probably won't be long before she puts her foot down about wearing clothes I pick out, so I'm enjoying it while I can.

And as we sit down to a sumptuous meal, I get intensely sentimental and give my little speech of gratitude for my wonderful family and my life. One day of the year to stop and give thanks for the truly important things in our life is not enough, but it is a good start.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

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