30 Days of Thanks: Diwali

Yesterday was Diwali and, as is our tradition, we celebrated with a big party filled with friends, food, and candle light.  I was too tired last night to manage two blog posts, but hopefully I can do two today and then I will be all caught up on 30 Days of Thanks.  Yesterday, day 3, was a big day and I was thankful for candlelight,

beautiful sidewalk chalk rangoli

big days spent preparing for a feast and family traditions that are all our own
The best way I can explain Diwali for us is that it’s like another Thanksgiving.   Chris spends all day cooking, I spend all day cleaning, decorating, and kid wrangling, and we all spend the day anticipating the feast to come.  It’s marvelous and exciting.

I’m thankful that Diwali fell on Chris’ day off and how happy that made Nora.  She sat on the counter helping him cook for 40 minutes or more and the whole time she kept saying over and over, “Isn’t it exciting that Dad is home?  Isn’t it exciting that he is cooking for Diwali?  I’m thankful for Dad’s cooking.  His cooking is the best.  He’s the best cooker in the world.”

And she’s right — he is the best “cooker” in our world.

Yesterday, Chris reminded me how thankful I am for Indian food.  Piles and piles of Indian food.

It’s better than manna from heaven.

And apparently the littlest one among us thought so too.

I’m thankful for new friends.  Friends for me and Chris, and friends for the girls.  (Nora was so busy with with a gaggle of girls in her bedroom I didn’t even get a picture of her all night.)

But most of all, I am thankful for my husband.  Chris is such a wonderful person.  He is the best husband I could imagine and such a wonderful father to our girls.  He puts his heart and soul into everything he does — he works so hard for our family, making it possible for me to stay home with our daughters and raise them the way we want them to be raised.  He has done things I cannot even fathom, like opening a multimillion dollar restaurant and working 6 day weeks, 16 hour days to make that possible, all because he loves it and because he loves us.   Things have settled down now, but he still works a full schedule and then on his one day off all week, he spends it doing exactly what he would be doing at work, cooking for others.  He is truly selfless.  He is the reason why yesterday was so wonderful, and he is the reason why all my days are so wonderful.  All the time I wonder how I got so lucky that he married me, and I am so very, very thankful for him.