My Thanksgiving preparations in recent years have involved a butcher, a baker and, well, there’s no candlestick maker. But there is a fishmonger, wine shops that are also wine bars, a predetermined welcome drink, an after-dinner social mixer and Black Friday restaurant visits, because I’m trying to make memories that will last longer than the holiday leftovers.

This has been a progression.

There was a time in life when my Thanksgiving preparations simply meant booking a flight from New Orleans to visit family back in the northeast, where amid fallen leaves, plunging afternoon darkness and warm kitchens it all seemed like stepping into a vintage holiday Coke commercial, especially through the steamy windows of memory. All I had to do was show up.

Then it changed to Thanksgiving with the

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