A Letter from Danielle for November ’24
Hi Everyone,
November always seems like the gateway to the holidays to me, or the prelude. Kind of the way Memorial Day announces the beginning of the summer. The Thanksgiving holiday always seems like such an important one to me because it is so inclusive, and brings not only friends and families together, but is also away of including new friends and even people we don’t know so well, and it’s an opportunity to fold people who may be alone and lonely, or new to the area, into a warm embrace. It’s about community, and giving thanks. It’s an opportunity for gratitude for all of us to stop and think of how blessed we are, how fortunate. Even if we are lacking something, it’s a chance to stop and see what we do have. It’s a chance for healing in troubled families, relationships, or friendships. It’s not about what we can get, but what we can give.
It’s a wonderful tradition, and I hope you have the chance to reach out to people you know who would otherwise be alone on the holiday. And a chance to share a great meal with people who desperately need to be remembered and included, and welcomed as well as fed. (I love the stuffing best, cranberry jelly, popovers, and pumpkin pie—and sweet potatoes with burnt marshmallows on top!!)
Right before the holiday, my newest hardcover book, Trial by Fire, will come out. It takes place during and in the midst of the terrible fires in Northern California a few years ago. It was a shocking experience—I was in California at the time. The sky was as dark as midnight at midday, the air was full of smoke, and you could hardly breathe. My car was covered with ashes in the morning—and I was sixty miles away! Homes were destroyed and entire towns vanished. It was a scene of destruction that only a natural disaster can create, and animals (from dogs to cows and horses) fled the flames, and people went to rescue them as brave fire fighters fought the fires that were ignited by a spark in a windstorm. It is the perfect setting to bring people together to help those they can, and for people to discover new things about themselves, like courage and acts of bravery, and what matters most. I hope you love the book. It will be a good gift for the holidays. I always try to pick a book for the holidays that everyone will love, and I hope you will . . . Among the blessings I am grateful for on Thanksgiving and always, I am grateful for YOU for sharing the books I write with me. I hope it will be a blessed holiday for you, and that all of us will find a way to be a blessing to others who may be alone or lonely on that day.
Happy Thanksgiving!!
Love,
Danielle