By Blaine Howerton, Publisher | North Forty News
Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite times of the year. Maybe it’s because the holiday gives us permission to slow down, appreciate our traditions, and sit with the people who make life whole. Or perhaps it’s the simple rhythm of the season—snow settling into the mountains, neighborhoods lighting up, and families gathering around kitchens that smell like home.
This week always reminds me how grateful I am for the community we serve. For decades, Northern Colorado has shown what it means to show up for one another—with food drives, volunteer days, holiday events, and the quiet, everyday kindness that often goes unreported but never unnoticed. Covering these stories is one of the greatest privileges of this job.
In my own family, Thanksgiving marks the unofficial start of another tradition: our annual trip into the forest to cut our Christmas tree on Black Friday. It’s a tradition my kids look forward to every year. There’s something special about standing together under a canopy of quiet pines, picking the tree, and hauling it back to the truck like we just pulled off the heist of the season. It’s cold, it’s messy, and absolutely perfect. Those memories are reminders of why these family rituals matter so much—they ground us, they connect us, and they give us stories we’ll talk about for years.
This week’s edition is full of those kinds of stories—Thanksgiving roots in Northern Colorado, ways families across the region celebrate, and community events that tie us together as winter starts to settle in. As always, thank you for reading, for supporting independent local journalism, and for choosing to be part of the story of this place we all call home.
Be sure to read this week’s complete edition online at NorthFortyNews.com/this-week. Bookmark the link—the new edition is posted there automatically each time it comes out.
