(And Why May Is My Favorite Month)
Every year, right in the middle of May, something shifts in my house. The good dishes come out. The table gets set like it means something. There is a turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and pie. And no, it is not November.
It is Maysgiving. The 4th Thursday of May; this year it’s the 28th!
If you are new here, let me catch you up. Maysgiving is my annual May Thanksgiving tradition, and it has been a part of our family’s life for seven years now. Same feast. Same gratitude. Same intentionality that the holidays bring, but without the cold weather, the travel stress, or the pressure of someone else’s schedule telling you when to be thankful.
I started it because I wanted a reason to slow down in the middle of an otherwise full season. May is this beautiful, busy, blooming time of year, and I kept rushing through it. I wanted to mark it. To sit at the table and mean it.
So I made one up.
The first Maysgiving was simple. I cooked too much food, the house smelled amazing, and somewhere in the middle of it, something clicked. This was going to be a tradition. And it has been, every single year since.
Over the years, Maysgiving has grown. The table has gotten fuller, the recipes have gotten more refined, and the meaning behind it has deepened in ways I did not expect. It is not just about the food. It is about creating a moment in the calendar that belongs to gratitude. A reset. A breath. A reason to gather before the summer heat takes over and everyone scatters.
May is also, not coincidentally, my favorite month. The weather in Southern California is just right. Everything is green and blooming. There is this collective feeling in the air of something good coming. Maysgiving fits right into that.
I share all of this because I want you to understand what Maysgiving is before I tell you about the book. It is not just a themed dinner. It is a philosophy. A decision to say that gratitude does not have to wait until November. That the table is worth setting any time of year.
Now, seven years in, I have written it all down.
