On a sunny day last week I suddenly realized I hadn’t seen a chipmunk since I got up. Where usually there were five or six of those small critters going up trees, into their dens, and chasing one another, not one was in sight. All week the yard was quiet and with nothing but one or two squirrels to be seen. Until Sunday morning, I put out some birdseed for the first time in a while, and to my surprise, one small “chippy” found it in about five minutes. For the rest of the day I watched that one small chipmunk go back and forth across the road to an entrance of its den in front of a treat. Cheeks puffed out with birdseed, the only one to leave its winter quarters that day, filled his cupboard with enough food to last awhile. In just under a half hour, chippy made 17 trips to store his food, while I watched in fascination. Only once did he stop for a quick drink of water at the dish nearby.

As we go again into a new month, the magazines and papers have abundant recipes for fixing turkey, cranberries, traditional pies, and all the good things that make up a Thanksgiving dinner. The tone this year is more somber as the country struggles to try and recover from recent tragedy.

Celebrations of Thanksgiving are far different today than in 1620. If it had not been for Squanto, an Indian in a village near Plymouth where the early settlers began their lives in the new world, there might not have been any Thanksgiving to celebrate. This friend to the new arrivals helped them construct their houses, obtain food and, in the spring, taught them how and when to plant their crops.

The first harvest in Plymouth was very sparse, but even without great bounty, the first celebration of Thanksgiving lasted three days. The settlers were joined by braves from the Wanpanoags Indian tribe and there were simple games and competitions in addition to the feasting. The Indians had brought deer, and a party provided game and seafood. The feast included white bread and corn bread, a variety of greens and watercress, wild plums and berries were served for dessert, and there was wine made from grapes.

Celebrations were “hit or miss” for a few years, with some states observing a day of thanks and others having a mostly religious celebration. By 1859 30 states celebrated the last Thursday in November and finally in October 1863, President Lincoln issued a proclamation establishing Thanksgiving as a national holiday, observed on the fourth Thursday of November.

Visitors stopped by Saturday bringing that beautiful five-month-old daughter. It has been awhile since we had young children in our family and it makes me feel the lack of things you do when babies are part of a family. I remember the first Christmas when a baby was a new family member; hanging the small stocking and receiving a new ornament for babies first Christmas! Those were fun years – the beginning of many more.

Ed Coffey also visited this weekend, bring a large bag of catnip to be prepared and packaged for the Historical Society’s Christmas boutique in early December. Another member, Nancy Zorena, has a magical patch of the catnip that has provided so many packages each year; it is fragrant and cats go a bit wild about it. That will be my project this week.

I am celebrating silently, inside, as I rejoice over the Arizona team winning the World Series. If Boston Red Sox can’t win, then the next best thing is for someone to conquer the Yankees!

Last week’s words that ended the column were spoken by Theodore Roosevelt.

Who said, “I have believed all my life in free speech – up to and including the utmost limits of the endurable”?