Our Thanksgiving stories usually revolve around both. The stories begin in the morning with the turkey preparation. This was always done to the sound of the parades or football games on the TV in the background, my dad cutting the olives and bread for the stuffing – with a running commentary of how much and the size of the pieces of both, and my mother talking about how she used to love the turkey neck. By now we can all recite her part in unison, and usually do!

As a child, my mom always made the holiday at our house for family and friends. One year, the Levinsons, family friends of my parents, joined us for dinner. They had a daughter, Diana, who was younger than both my sister and me. Diana was very slight and shy. My grandpa Dan, who had a wicked outrageous sense of humor that took some getting used to even for those who knew him well, offered to help this little girl fix a plate at the buffet (which is how we always serve Thanksgiving dinner). He fixed her an enormous plate of food which weighed more than she did. He set it down in front of her at the table and said, “And when you finish that, you can have some more.” Well, she ran crying from the table and I don’t remember her returning! I certainly hope that experience didn’t make Thanksgiving her least favorite holiday.

As a young adult, the tradition had become dinner with family, and an open house for dessert when friends would come by. This tradition took on a life of its own during my college years, my first years married, and really grew once we moved to San Diego from Michigan. It was the one time of year we always visited Detroit and my parents’ house on Thanksgiving evening was the place to gather and catch up with the friends and family we were separated from all year. Once we had kids, it was everyone’s guaranteed time to check in on the cuteness of the offspring. By that time in our lives the order of the draw to the Krause House was 1) My mom’s desserts 2) the cute girls 3) Amy and Paul.  This tradition continued, broken only once, the year Dana was born, when we had a small Thanksgiving in San Diego, which we hosted in our condo. With the long distance phone bill to my mother during the preparation of that meal, along with the cooking supplies and serving dishes purchased, I am quite sure three airfares to Michigan would have been cheaper!

Years ago when we told the girls that my parents were moving here, Sophie asked if we were still going to go back to Grandma Suzy and Papa Gerry’s house for Thanksgiving. I said no, that that wouldn’t be their house anymore, to which she replied, “But what about all the people and the party?!” I told her that we would have Thanksgiving at our house, with people and a party here. And that is exactly what we have done ever since.  Okay, honestly, the only thing I do is have it at our house; my mom and sister make almost ALL the food. The same food my mom has been making since the ’70s, with the wonderful addition of Linda and Ed’s sweet potatoes and the Jensens’ mashed potatoes.

The first year we hosted Thanksgiving in our house, my friend since the 8^th grade, Sherrie, came out to celebrate with us. After all, coming to my parents’ house for at least dessert had been her tradition since 1974 (now you all know how old I am!). Their move affected her holiday tradition as well. I don’t remember how many people we had that year, but our biggest year we had 42 for dinner. It is quite something for us to have and feed that many people in our house given its modest size and electrical panel from 1969. Inside, it looks and smells like Martha Stewart; outside and in the garage, the Beverly Hillbillies! But it has become our thing, and it feels good. It feels good that we have made a life that fills our home with family and friends, a real reason to give thanks.

This year will be the first since we have lived in our house that we will not be hosting Thanksgiving as usual. You see, nothing this year is “as usual” because my dad isn’t here. My sister and my mom just can’t see this remaining our favorite holiday, and maybe this year it won’t be. If it isn’t, I hope it will be again. They couldn’t see continuing with business as usual, when nothing is usual without my dad.

We are all upset by the thought and the reality of Thanksgiving without my dad, but Dana was the most upset by the change in the routine of her favorite day of the year. My mom, my sister and I just couldn’t do the routine so soon, without my dad. So we are changing things up this year. But we promised Dana that we wouldn’t change the food. That has to be and will always be exactly the same.

Each of us holds the stories, the traditions, the routine within us. I hope we find that that is what makes the holiday our favorite. I hope we find more comfort than pain in the familiar yet altered. I hope we all give ourselves a holiday that honors our tradition with this day, Dana’s favorite day of the year. But it won’t be a big crowd, and it won’t be at our house. And someone else will have to supervise the size of the olives and the bread for the stuffing. Thanks to my dad, there will be four qualified women to do just that — me, my sister, Sophie and Dana. After all, we each spent our childhood sitting at my dad’s side, first watching, then once we were old enough to handle a knife, helping.

We’ll be back on Friday with the first of our highly-anticipated holiday gift guides. Look for one each day from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, and make sure you’re signed up so you get them first. You’ll find lots of great ideas for unique, handmade, one-of-a-kind gifts that give back. Now that’s something to be thankful for!

As we stood huddled in the corner of the room watching the replay on my camera, Miriam and I were both overcome with emotion. I was so taken by this young girl who was, at first glance,  like my daughters at that age, laughing and doing an art project with other girls — but the next minute was speaking firsthand about a subject that no one, let alone an 11-year-old girl, should be familiar with. That shook me on many levels. But I didn’t understand why Miriam was crying. At first I thought she was upset about the video for some reason, but she explained that it wasn’t that. It was the fact that her dream of making a difference was actually becoming a reality.

At that moment, this video, Miriam’s poem, her letter and our connection to Miriam took on a whole new meaning. It had always been personal for Miriam, but it became personal to me in that instant. I don’t think I will ever forget that shared experience. I lived many years before I did something that gave me the feeling that I had made a difference. Miriam had lived only 11 years. I felt privileged to have watched her have that feeling perhaps for the first time. I know it won’t be the last. Miriam has just begun.

Dear Olivia Klaus,

I am really happy with the letter you gave me. It really motivates me a lot more to change domestic violence. I never thought a filmmaker would write me a letter because I thought it wasn’t a big issue. At some point, I thought that I wouldn’t change domestic violence. I know that I am not going to change all of it but I just want women to speak out against it.

My idea is to make a club so that women could speak out. I have a question though. I am not sure if I want the club to be for kids my age or older people, or even both. What do you think?

I think that NO other woman should be treated like my cousin because it does not just affect the woman who passes by domestic violence, but it also affects the people who love her.

Thank you again for your letter and all of your support.

Love,

Miriam Mendoza

This is the kind of movie that makes you want to get involved yourself, and the Sin by Silence website offers practical valuable resources, including a list of warning signs. When director/producer Olivia Klaus heard that 11-year-old Girl Scout Miriam Mendoza had inspired us to launch M-Power U with StyleSubstanceSoul.com after her 19-year-old cousin was killed last year by her estranged husband, she wrote Miriam a letter which we are proud to share here.

Olivia is making a difference. Miriam is making a difference. How are you making a difference?

Remember, every 9 seconds … 

Miriam,

Today you have the world ahead of you.  Today you can be anything you want, or be anyone you can dream of being.  Today you have the world at your fingertips.

I remember when I was your age and felt invincible.  Felt like I could take on the world.  Now that many years have passed, I have realized how dangerous our world is.  There are people who want to use you and take your choices away from you.  When you want their attention, love and approval, please remember that love is never supposed to hurt.  Love is not jealous.  Someone who loves you won’t ever use you, isolate you, or trap you.

Your family has experienced the dangers of abusive relationships firsthand.  The heartbreaking death of your cousin Diana was a tragedy, but your passion to make a difference has turned it into an opportunity. I knew that I had to write and let you know how proud I am of your tremendous courage.

From the work I do as a filmmaker, I know women who are on the opposite outcome of what your cousin went through.  The women in our documentary, Sin by Silence, overcame the odds of abuse.  Yet, unfortunately, they paid the ultimate price in protecting themselves, along with their families, and they remain trapped behind prison walls.  Like your cousin, these women found themselves in a relationship and situation with no way out.  Within a split second, they had to make the decision to defend their life against their abusers, and have spent over 20 years in prison.  Yet, it is because there are people like you in this world doing incredible things to bring about awareness that I know lives will be saved.  You are creating an incredible legacy to carry on the memory of your cousin.  I commend you on being a role model activist for all generations.

Miriam, you are amazing.  Already at age 11, you are changing the world!  Thank you for giving me new inspiration to trudge forward in the work that I do to advocate to end violence against women.  Thank you for also being a fellow advocate who is taking on the cause to champion change.  Yet, when you get to high school and you meet that first boy who just sweeps you off your feet, know that the choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life.  Be strong. Know that you matter. You are beautiful, important, and can change the world.

Forever in my heart,

Olivia Klaus

As we drive into Nawn Thoong village in Thailand’s northeast province of Khon Kaen, Pii Yai is excited. She has served for many years on the board of directors of Prae Pan Group, a women’s weaving co-operative in Thailand’s northeast, whose staff set up our visits today to three villages where members live and work.

We gather across the street at the house of Mae Pit, a long-time Prae Pan member. She and the four other members sit on a mat next to the house, protected from the glaring sun. All in their late 50s, these are the village’s silk weavers. Like most of Prae Pan’s members, they are farmers who fit weaving around their farming chores and caring for their children, grandchildren and elders. Weaving brings in much needed income which is used to send their children to trade school or university, for health care and to improve their lives in the village.

By belonging to the co-op they are paid for their work as soon as they deliver it to the group’s shop in Khon Kaen city. Members are proud that the co-op owns this shop, reflecting the group’s goal of being self-sufficient.

Co-op membership gives members the chance to work with customers like us, who pay 50% in advance for orders. It also gives them a market for their weaving well beyond what they would otherwise be able to reach as individuals.

We talk to the women gathered today about passing on the skills they learned from their mothers. Now their daughters are going off to earn their livings in the cities or on to further schooling. These skills are at risk of being lost, we’re told again and again on visits like these.

Sometimes younger women do return to their village when their children are small, preferring a quieter life where they have family support networks. “When I was young,” says one of the women, “I went away to work in a factory. Then I came back to my village. At home, you’re free. I can farm and I’m happier.”

After choosing samples of silk yarns in some of the colours they can produce in this village, we thank the women, jump in Pii Yai’s truck and arrive a short time later in Nom Thoom. We stop at the house of Mae Nung who is feeding organic mulberry leaves to heritage silkworms in baskets her husband has woven. “Raising silkworms is like raising babies,” she says. The resulting silk yarns, painstakingly reeled by hand, are produced organically, protecting both the women’s health and their local environment.

In neighbouring Suk Som Boon, Mae Nung practices the full circle of producing silk. She grows the mulberry bushes to feed the silkworms, hand reels and twists silk yarns, dyes them with natural dyes that she has grown or gathered in the wild, and weaves. It’s time- consuming work, taking two months to produce 12 handwoven, naturally dyed silk scarves, three months to produce 40 metres of organic silk fabric.

We watch as Mae Pan cuts the reddish green leaves of “maak yao.” She has a new recipe to create a luminescent green. She dips the silk yarns in the simmering dye bath twice, then gets help from Mae Pet, the president of Prae Pan, to straighten the fine yarns and hang them to dry.

Preserving these traditional skills – and bringing income to women in Thailand and Laos’s rural areas – is what’s behind TAMMACHAT’s work. Fair trade is about much more than paying fairly for the work. It’s about respecting the people who do the work, learning from each other and supporting sustainable practices. It makes a real difference in the lives of these women.

“Our weavers are very proud when they can weave cloth beautiful enough to attract customers,” Mae Pet tells us. And well they should be.

You can never have too many purses, and this one is a beauty for so many reasons. Designed by 20-year-old cancer survivor Yali Derman, Yali’s Carry On® is a gorgeous bag which symbolizes “how patients carry on even in the face of medical baggage.” Wow.

Yali, a college sophomore, worked with our handbag idol, Kate Spade, back in 2008 on a project that earned them the title of Donors of the Year to the Make a Wish Foundation. Since then, Yali has developed her own trademark, and her pink beach bag alone raised more than $10,000 for K.I.D.S.S. for Kids, Affiliated Organization of Children’s Hospital Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

Yali’s latest creation is a roomy tote bag adorned with a stunning peacock. Each of her designs is very meaningful and personal to her, and this one is no exception. You can read all about the symbolism behind her work on her website.

Proceeds from Yali’s Carry On® benefit K.I.D.S.S. for Kids.

Each bag is a limited edition, so shop now!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

When I was growing up, my large and very spirited family would gather in our den for the festive Rosh Hashanah meal.  It was my job to magically transform our kitchen table into a large dining buffet, complete with starched, white linen, china dishes, sterling silverware, crystal glassware and my great grandmother’s brass candlesticks.  Because my grandparents died before I was born, and all of our relatives lived on the East Coast, my mother shared our holiday with any and all willing participants. Jewish or not, black, white, brown, yellow, young or old, if they could eat, they were invited.  The arrival of friends from every walk of life signaled the beginning of the feast, with a menu that hardly ever changed.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New year, is one of the holiest days of the year. It is a time of prayer and introspection and like most holidays, food plays a central role in its celebration and rituals. Smells of rendered chicken fat, fried liver and onions, baking brisket, bubbling noodle kugel, chicken soup and matzah balls filled our small tract home for days before and after the holiday.  I left my mother’s kitchen only once during those prep days, happily driving with my father to Brown’s bakery to pick up our special, round challah and a sponge cake that was a beautiful pastel yellow, tall and airy like an angel’s wings.

Back then, I believed we started the dinner by dipping apples in honey in order to stop all the cacophony of conversations.  But actually, we dip apples in honey to wish each other a sweet year.  We eat carrots in a dish called tzimmes, because the Yiddish word for carrot — “merren” — means “increased.”  With every serving of orange “coins,” we wish for increased health and prosperity in the New Year.  Challah, an egg bread usually braided in a straight loaf, is round like a spiral staircase and filled with golden raisins.  Since Rosh Hashanah symbolizes the creation of the world, the round challah is seen as a symbol of the holiness of life and its eternalness.

On my porch, as the sky became an inky, dark blue, I thought about the ways in which I will celebrate this holy day with my own family and friends.  I consider myself a spiritual person, having a human experience, but I am also a Jew who believes in the ideals of the Torah. I have been taught — and embrace the belief — that Kodesh (holiness) is an attitude that filters through every person and is based upon a moral structure realized in our daily actions.  It is a tenor of life, unchanged by mood, unaltered by situation. The Jewish tradition sees the newborn child not on a downhill road toward evil, but on an upward path to divinity.  In my faith, one can attain Kodesh through conscious effort and the continual practice of Mitzvot — the holy obligations of the Jewish people.

Here are the Mitzvot that we are reminded to recommence with the coming of the New Year:

To honor father and mother;

To perform acts of love and kindness;

To attend the house of study;

To welcome the stranger;

To visit the sick;

To rejoice with the bride and groom;

To console the bereaved;

To pray with sincerity;

To make peace when there is strife.

My religion has taught me that the key to an inner holy life is freedom from envy and unselfish behavior.  As for an outer holy life, friendship and compassion are paramount. Spiritually, I believe that life is about learning from our experiences, and that is where we merge both spheres of existence and transcend the division between the material world and the spiritual world.

Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh.

May the whole earth be filled with holiness through our Mitzvot.

And may you have a happy, healthy, holy New Year.

Brauna Walsh is a recovering perfectionist living in Ojai with her husband, 2 dogs, 3 rabbits, 2 guinea pigs, 2 chickens and a mini horse. She is a mother, a healer, a writer and a poet, devoted to “loving simply, loving generously, caring deeply and speaking kindly.” Visit her blog, “Rantings from a Recovering Perfectionist,” by clicking here.

The first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, encouraging women to plant trees across Kenya for both environmental and economic reasons. Because of this innovative project,  30 million trees have been planted and almost a million women have been helped.

We  hope you’ll take a few minutes to honor this amazing woman:

* Read our original post about her

* Read her obituary in the New York Times

* Read condolences from dignitaries including President Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Archbishop Demond Tutu, and be inspired to create your own movement

* Plant a tree

* Make a donation to the Wangari Maathai Memorial Fund (which is what we did because we know they will do a better job of planting trees than we ever could)

* Make a donation to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund

Thank you, Dr. Maathai, for making the world a better, greener place.