Turkey, Dark Chocolate, And Even Darker Gratitude

Here is where you get in touch. Work with me, share your experience or requests > this is how to reach me. Love, - Sara

Leave the gloss at the door—this Thanksgiving, we tell the truth and still set the table with love. I’m hosting twenty friends, testing a dark chocolate caramel apple cake, and building a long, burgundy-and-olive table that feels like a hug. Alongside the menu and the seating chart, I name the complicated history of Thanksgiving, the harm too often skipped at dinner, and why honesty can live beside joy. We can gather, feed one another, and keep the facts on the table without losing the warmth that makes ritual matter.

From years of yoga teaching, I’ve learned to hold paradox: valuing a technique while refusing to excuse a harmful figure. That lens helps here. I walk through my planning system—guest lists, dietary notes, timelines, and decor—and how execution became a learned skill, not a personality trait. Organization isn’t about perfection; it’s the scaffolding that lets presence and play show up when the doorbell rings. If you’re hosting, you’ll find practical tips to calm the chaos and create an experience your people actually feel.

Then we go deeper than Pinterest gratitude. Real gratitude is somatic; it lands in the body as breath, warmth, and soft shoulders. We talk nervous system regulation, how to stop spiraling when the caramel burns, and a practice I call “dark gratitude”—thanking the hard lessons that reshaped you. Finally, we look ahead with curiosity: can you appreciate the future self you haven’t met yet? If rituals are reminders to remember, this one reminds us to be brave enough to feel. If this resonated, subscribe, share with a friend who’s hosting, and leave a quick review—what are you grateful for that once hurt?