FOR the second year in a row, my family attended a Thanksgiving gathering at our friends Ingrid and Chris’s house. I thought it would be fun to show the difference in Mogs from one year to the next:

IN 2006, with our gracious host, Ingrid.

THIS year, mingling with daddy.

WE had a wonderful time at Ingrid’s, as usual. (She and her husband are very generous friends, and open their home to us a few times each year.) There was turkey with all the trimmings (my favorite was Chris’s sweet potato pie), coffee, wine, music and conversation. After dinner all the guests bundled up and took a walk in the frigid evening air until it got dark; I held Mogs in my arms to keep her warm. Then, pumpkin pie and ice cream. Mogs got to play with two big girls, Fiona and Eliza, who were very patient with her.

THERE’s a strange thing about having Thanksgiving at someone else’s house, though. If you come home without leftovers, you may enter into a panic, thinking that you’re in danger of starving. (I guess we get used to having a lavish bounty on one particular day each year?) That’s what happened to me: as soon as I had put Mogs down for the night, I needed to fix us a second dinner. I made baked chicken breast with sweet potato french fries and cranberry sauce. I even made a glaze for the chicken, something I wouldn’t normally do.