There is nothing like family and holiday traditions to rile us up, at the same time it seems we can hardly live without our relatives and all that comes with being a family, so here’s a toast to mine. In no particular order, I am thankful for so much this past holiday week, not least for my heritage and connection to Big Sur and Nepenthe.

For our wonderful morning walk on Thanksgiving day along the coast highway followed by a mid-morning soak at Esalen’s hot baths with my cousins and lots of old friends. This is our annual holiday get-together, an experience that is unrivaled and so dear to me.

For my day before excursion, to the Pisoni family home south of Salinas to make venison and pork sausages from an old family recipe. They are some of the best sausages I have ever had, and I feel lucky to have sat around the table with Grandma Jane and her grandkids learning the art and sharing in their holiday tradition.

Turkey dinner was spent at Nepenthe, as is our family ritual, with more than a hundred friends, family members, and staff and their families. My two sisters and son both contributed to the cooking process; my aunt Holly made all the pies. It was a beautiful meal and an equally beautiful night, almost strangely balmy, as it can be this time of year.

The rest of my weekend was filled with kids and siblings and partners and mothers, and some of us piled into one house, younger kids on the floor, me in a shared bed with my daughter, lots of cozying around the table for breakfast and dinner and snacks and stories. My sister Sara made persimmon chocolate chip cookies (I promise a later post about them) that were absolutely scrumptious, along with an apple pie, just for the having. I even managed a book signing at the Phoenix Shop on Saturday in the midst of it all, and she took all the kids.

With blistering wind some days, there were the hours the kids played and argued their points around a Monopoly board–hilarious, but truly why cousins love each other so much. Other hours were spent out doors, walking around Lovers Point in Pacific Grove, ducking under a restaurant umbrella amidst spurts of rain, for hot cocoa and a glass of wine mid afternoon; spending an evening around the family table on top of Partington Ridge where we used to live at the old Healey homestead–big bowls of turkey soup, lemon pickle, and French wine  for dinner–and then back to my sisters with a grocery bag full of goodies from the garden–a late, late night dodging felled power lines and trees en route.

And then there was a very welcome afternoon at Carmel beach on our way out of town the next day, with kids and dogs, a football and a picnic to boot. Let alone that it was absolutely stunning–warm and sunny with blue, blue skies.

It’s hard to go wrong on weekends like this, and I could live on the beach day in and day out, but some how, it always feels good to find my way home, here in Oakland, too.

So, now between writing and other assignments, I’m in scramble mode to prepare for my trip to LA (tomorrow) and then on to Santa Barbara. I’m trying to remember when I was last  in the city of gold–more than a year ago, in fact, if not longer, as my last quick visit was only to the edge of town to interview producer Martin Ranshoff (a whole section in my book about The Sandpiper, filmed in Big Sur, and featuring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton).

Truth is I hardly know LA at all. I’ll be staying on Venice beach with a cousin and just now thinking of all the places I’d like to eat–Mozza and Lucques for one, but how far are they from where I will be staying?  And beside my reading at Book Soup, tomorrow night at 7 pm–and I hope to see some of you there–what to do, where to go? As you can see, I really have no clue, and would love to hear from you.

December 1st at Book Soup, West Hollywood at 7 pm

December 3rd at Chaucer’s, Santa Barbara, at 7 pm

And as always, the Phoenix Shop in Big Sur has signed copies of My Nepenthe. Order yours today, or have one sent to a friend.