SO MUCH! Right? How was your Thanksgiving? Are you done decorating yet? Done shopping?🤣 What are you doing for the holidays? You know we’re having our Christmas on Martha’s Vineyard . . . but before we go there . . . A. Musica and B. other stuff . . .🌺
How was your Thanksgiving? Ours was perfect! Just enough and not too much! Here’s our Norman Rockwell moment …. (we would have made more room for Shelly if our niece, Trish, who was taking the picture, had told us she was there!😈)
I was in the supermarket shopping for Thanksgiving, suddenly overwhelmed by the ABUNDANCE of food around me, the CHOICES, the fancy cakes and cookies in every shape, cheeses and butter from all over the world, shelves of fresh, nutritious vitamin-filled everything ~ everything you could want or need, just toss it in the basket! And over the loudspeaker, “Come to the pharmacy and get your free flu shoat!” For me it’s a short hop from all of this, to the suffering in this crazy world of ours. It almost made me cry in the vegetable department!! Half from joy and half from sadness💔, and all from gratitude.😪😅🥲
Our little house …🏡 Joe, and my sister Shelly 💞, so much. We had our Thanksgiving on Monday, so the nieces and nephews wouldn’t have to travel on the holiday ….🚗
Shelly’s twin boys, Paden on left, and Mason on right, are 21 now, totally immersed in those imprint years, with girlfriends, Dani and Kayla, becoming aware of the world, the opportunities, figuring it all out, dreaming dreams, living the good life and making our lives more fun!☺️
I started nice and early, before they got here, setting the table, getting the house ready, doing flowers, cooking, puttering, all those homey soul-filling things that the holidays bring.💖
Yes I brought lots of good Thanksgiving dishes with us, and interesting, as always to me, because every house I have lived in has done it, the house says what it wants. It does not want a tablecloth! It wants wood! I tried a tablecloth… but the house was right, it wasn’t warm enough, not cozy enough, so as usual, I give our house what it asks for! And it thanks me by being all the cozy I need.♥️
We had it all ~ my grandma’s stuffing and gravy, my mom’s Waldorf salad, Joe’s delicious broccoli/cheese casserole, Shelly’s green bean casserole, Trader Joe’s rolls, my Rainbow Jell-O and Pumpkin Cheesecake. And we held hands as I said my Grandma’s prayer … 
After that, I forgot to take pictures! Too much fun! Too much eating! 🍗😋
They took their new memories and went home Tuesday morning, and Joe and I instantly jumped into the car and went here!🎄
And bought this short fat little tree. It’s little, but it fills the house with pine smells, and we wanted to celebrate here for as long as possible. Our train pulls out of San Luis Obispo, heading for Chicago, then through the cold and snow to Boston on Sunday the 8th . . . but until then, happily have Christmas in our California tree house! 🌳🏡🌳
We cozy in, light the candles🕯️ with matches in the little house on the table ~ see it there? No way, too tiny . . .
Here it is, in all its glory, fulfilling my favorite William Morris recommendation, 
Or cute, I might add! And doesn’t this little house of matches have it all!? Some of you got one of these when I showed it on the blog before… hope you have it out, now is the time it was meant for! I think we might have a few left … I know Kellee ordered them!
We’ve been watching every wonderful old Christmas movie we can find . . . like here, It’s a Wonderful Life!🍿
me, Jack, and Joe … not missing one minute of this delightful dizzy month of December!
In the meantime, lots of things need doing before we go.🪴🪷🪴 I’ve always wanted a little Potted Garden with ode to Beatrix Potter included (never to be forgotten). In New England you have to empty your pots every year, the dirt expands when the pot freezes which breaks it, so California is the best place for this! I’ve been saving things for it, even brought things from MV . . . pots and bunny etc… we already had the watering can here.👏 And when we cut down that giant tree a couple of months ago, we opened up that area to the sunshine, and the big stump gave me a little platform to build on!
I’ve slowly been filling the pots with herbs and flowers, with still a few more to go. I really wanted to get this done before we leave so I can come home and go…
So this makes me happy.
And this makes me happy ~ my walk, round and round our property.
Thinking we could build a “Fall Garden Room” here with a lawn in the middle, and surround it with color and have picnics and leaves could fall on us! While I walk, I’ve been listening to a riveting book, The Alice Network. This is a book that builds with every chapter. And with only two hours left to go, I’m on edge. Torn between wanting to see what happens, NOT wanting to see what happens, and not wanting it to end. 💃🏼
How much I love this as round and round I go. I throw my arms in the air as a murder of crows takes off from the fence and pull it all into my heart, the whole blue sky, the green fields, the clouds, all of it! And repeat our Thanksgiving blessing: For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies. 🌤️🌁
Joe was out picking oranges yesterday . . . getting them down from the top branches.🍊
Aren’t they beautiful? Almost match my tennis shoes. We have the juiciest best oranges, we’re taking a bunch of them back to the island with us! They make the best Old-Fashions EVER! You can smell them right through their skin, they perfume the kitchen and make it smell like Christmas!🍊
Even Jack is curious!
And we still have plenty left to ripen-up while we’re away. Moving here was the right thing to do. Decisions like this are never fun. Took us forever to decide. It could all go so wrong. But it’s turning out right. A nice flat house, a nice flat dirt road, and free oranges.
And, huge plus, cats in trees!
XOXOX
These two kitties, Simon (in the tree), Sammy (with the freckle) have lived their entire lives on this property. They were studio cats when our house was the Studio for our business, but now that we’ve moved here, we all decided we couldn’t move them from everything they know and love, much too traumatic, especially after watching what Jack went through … and that turned out to be a win-win for Joe and me, because now we HAVE them all!!!
Good for us, but not so much for the King Bee! He’s wild about them, but not in a good way. In a wild way. With teeth and claws.
Although we don’t give Jack a chance to use them. Simon is a big calm, happy, loving mooshey kitty. See him out there on the deck? He doesn’t care who is boss. Live and let live, just rub my tummy is his motto. Sammy is a small tuxedo kitty who thinks he’s boss 
because he got here first. They are both used to living outdoors and they love each other. And then there’s Jack, the smallest of them all. Simon will wait outside on the deck forever to be friends with Jack. But Sammy wouldn’t touch that deck with a ten foot pole. And Jack? Snarls. Growls, Yowls. So we wait. I hope somehow they become friends while we’re gone, when Alfredo is in charge. I haven’t the nerve to simply open the sliding glass door and “see what happens.”👀😳🫣 I would love to have them all in the house. Sammy and Simon eat and sleep in the barn, we let them out in the morning. But Jack can’t go out. Stay tuned for the rest of the story!💞
I finished all four 2026 Calendars the day before Thanksgiving! 👏
We go out and sit in the sun under blue and white striped umbrellas and have lunch. Because we can.
And we go with friends … that’s my darling Joe in front, behind him is Diane, then Cliff (yes, my ex, who, since a million years have gone by, we don’t care, we are always going to be friends👍. (we all did the best we knew how back then and I’m sure you can see why I say he was a guardian angel for me, and why guardian angels don’t always wear white ~ angel things change us, in ways that seem awful at the time, but can turn out to be a starting place for joy), and next to him, his WONDERFUL wife Lynette (thank goodness this was the one he married or it never would have worked), a Texas girl, funny and smart, an award-winning golfer⛳️ and tennis player, and I would say Cook! And next to her, old friends Sharon Lovejoy📚🪴 and her husband Jeff Prostovich! So fun, beautiful, on the last day that our favorite restaurant ever will be open. Spyglass Restaurant, closed forever last month. We had to go. For the memories. Ch-ch-ch-changes. Bah humbug.🤣 I shouldn’t laugh, but I really do hate it!🤣
Just got an email from Amtrak, “Your train leaves in 5 days!” Time to pack! Last lunch with Diane today!
Speaking of which, did you get your calendars? Time to put on your special dates for fun in 2025!
Here we are, in the back seat of a cart, being driven through LA Union Station, outside to board the train. I took that photo of us in the driver’s rear-view mirror the last time we went. And in 5 days, we’ll do it again! So lucky. I hope everyone has their Christmas Lights up, that’s my favorite part about being snug in our room with a view on a train in the snow. The Christmas lights!
I think I’ll put Twitter from the Twain on BlueSky this time. Bluesky Social is available in a free app in your phone . . . come join, it’s NICE! Bluesky Train pulls out December 8th!
Home to our old house🚂 on Martha’s Vineyard. It hasn’t sold yet, so we are going to get one more Christmas there.👏 And hug all our friends.🥲😅🥰 And go on our walk through the woods to the sea. Which is all I want for Christmas! What a gift. In the house where we lived for 35 years, the house that knows all our secrets and loves us anyway ~ and always will whether we live there or not. Will we have snow? I don’t know, but in case we don’t, here it is. I insist! Elaine called me this morning to say, “It’s 31º here this morning, get ready.” We are so ready, hats, gloves, scarves … it’s all ready to go.
I’ll take pictures! Next Blog!
We all send love.♥️ No matter where we are, we are always
And on January 5th, we will train right out of that cold, back to the blue sky and golden sun . . . and a new year. With an orchard to plant! And plans to make, because we’re going to England in May!!!! Oh my gosh, I just realized, I could go on here forever! I keep thinking of other things to say! Read my last blog post if you didn’t get the part about the trip to England! Love you dear hearts! xoxoxo
