Comfort Food + Cover Songs
Happy Thanksgiving to each of you ~
Wherever you are, and no matter what your holiday has morphed into this year I wish you a weekend respite from reality with comfort & gratitude, as much as you can muster. I'm thankful for you! xo
My blog is below but it's Thanksgiving Day and I hope you're too busy with the turkey, hanging with family, watching the game or taking a nap. Read it later if you want...
To get right to the music, click below for our new Thanksgiving playlist - it's a mix of classic songs from the past & a cover version of each by new artists I want to introduce you to. Have fun with it. Great for a game of name that tune or vote on which version you like better... All ages. (click below to listen on Spotify)
A:
It brought pain & sorrow, disruption and fear;
it lacked perfect vision which it claimed was clear.
Q:
What is 2020?
Sometimes you just need the answer first.
Like television’s favorite game show Jeopardy hosted by the legendary frontman Alex Trebek who passed away last week, I’ve been thinking about the game and why it draws us in. Trebek was the familiar fixture who with his fierce intellect and calm demeanor invited us to play along from the comfort of our home. He prompted us in every round to think backwards by giving us the answer first. A defined known. The rest is up to us to frame the best narrative - in the form of a question - to complete the equation correctly. The margins are tighter when the answer comes first. It reigns in the options, cues a category, narrows the field so you can focus. There’s only so far you can go to figure things out. And sometimes that feels nice.
This holiday won’t be that and you know this now. With so much up in the air and few answers in sight most of us floundered trying to plan for Thanksgiving 2020; the who/what/when/where answers were fleeting and elusive. One thing's for sure, this year will not be the anchor weekend we usually look forward to, built on family traditions, favorite foods and familiar surroundings. We’re all unraveling in a throwaway year with only 35 days to go. So there’s your answer. How will you spend those days - your life - and cope?
If you frame it the narrative will come. I'll go first...
We had our Thanksgiving last weekend. After 16 alternate ideas of how to do this we finally settled on a fairly pathetic plan which turned out to be one of the most fulfilling holidays we've ever had. It was grassroots basic. Our Thanksgiving consisted of a masked family walk around my town followed by a freezing cold distanced quick beer around the firepit and a complete carryout dinner cooked by me for my kids and their families. I threw in wine and flowers to up the vibe of their solo dining experience. It was so DIY but so intimate - very different from our usual 20+ gatherings which are wonderful but wild. Cooking solo all morning for my kids was a thrill I haven't had in awhile. I made our annual spread, every recipe their favorite. Weirdly I wasn't even tired like I usually am from standing all day at the counter. I was on a mission to make comfort food for my kids in this pandemic and nothing could stop me. Secondly, a cool thing happened on our walk. Over the course of the hour we naturally gravitated to one on one, having more time to really chat with each other which is rarely the case at our crowded Thanksgiving table. I felt like we all got to really visit with each other as opposed to the traditional 10 hour indoor version with some of us in the kitchen, some watching the game, music on, kids running... This was the opposite of that, we were together for 2.5 hours but it was a valuable dose of togetherness.
Q: What is a zen silver lining?
THANKSGIVING PLAYLIST
(click below to listen on Spotify)
PS: You can find all of our playlists on Spotify - it's easy - just search Valslist and click on the little Valslist circle icon (our profile) and follow us! If you want more - subscribe to the Valslist Music YouTube channel, or sign up for our email list. Stay connected with us!
PSS: We'd love it if you shared Valslist with a friend! But don't forward this email to them, sometimes it accidentally unsubscribes people in the process (ugh.)
In music,
Val