Thanks and Giving

According to the calendar, tomorrow is Thanksgiving.

According to the relentless onslaught of my e-mail inbox, Thanksgiving has been cancelled and replaced by Black Friday.

But Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, so I write to you today about Thanksgiving.

For me, Thanksgiving is about being with your family and close friends, hunting, cold weather, football, the end of fall and start of winter, everyone cooking, gathering around a table, being grateful, and eating a good meal.

And that’s it.

It’s simple.

No gifts. No religion. Nothing divisive.

I love it.

Tonight, for the 19th year in a row, I’ll cook a pumpkin pie that — remarkably — seems to deteriorate in taste and flavor each year.

(Thank god for Sarah’s homemade whipped cream.)

And we will cut the bread for my dad’s stuffing recipe.

As you may recall from a previous blog post, my dad passed away unexpectedly in February.

His absence this Thanksgiving is overwhelming; there simply are no words for it.

But earlier today I searched my e-mail for his stuffing recipe, and I found an e-mail he sent to his coworkers in 2013 titled, “World's Best Stuffing Recipe.”

My dad’s recipe came from his mom, Midge Skoglund, and I can genuinely say it’s the world’s greatest stuffing recipe.

I saved that e-mail in 2013 so I would always have the recipe — but little did I know then that it would be his words in that e-mail — and not the recipe — that I would savor.

His e-mail — true to my dad’s personality — contained multiple jokes that can — quite literally — only be described as “dad jokes.”

(And I loved reading every single one of them.)

After walking through the recipe and cracking his jokes, this is how he finished the e-mail:

“Also please remember the words that make up tomorrow’s holiday …. Thanks and Giving!

Enjoy (and it is even better cold over the weekend watching football)!

Chef Pete.”

My dad lived those words everyday.

He was a deeply grateful man, and he gave a shit ton of himself to everyone around him until the day he died.

I share all of this with you today to honor my great dad and to say thank you.

Thank you for your support, your business, and your enthusiasm for NBB.

Without you, none of this exists.

Wherever you find yourself tomorrow, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

And I hope you remember those two important words: Thanks and Giving.

Lots of love to all of you.

— Matt