Thanksgiving is a time for gratitude, family, and—let’s be honest—a lot of food. As we look ahead to Thanksgiving 2025, it’s the perfect time to commit to making your celebration more sustainable. By incorporating just a few eco-friendly practices, you can reduce your waste and carbon footprint without sacrificing any of the holiday joy.
Here are10 tipsto make your Thanksgiving celebration green:
In the Kitchen & Shopping:
Shop Local for Your Feast:Commit to buying ingredients from yourlocal farmer’s market, aFood Co-op, or a farmer in your area. This not only supports your community but drastically reduces the transportation distance and associated carbon emissions of your meal.
Skip the Paper and Plastic Bags:As you head to the grocery store, always remember to take yourreusable bags.
Use a Reusable Roasting Pan:Skip the increasingly popular, but environmentally unfriendly, disposable roasting pans. A sturdy, reusable roasting pan is a better choice for the environment.
Compost Leftovers:Instead of throwing away vegetable scraps, turkey bones, or uneaten leftovers, remember tocompostthem. This diverts food waste from landfills, where it would otherwise produce methane gas.
On the Table:
Use Cloth Napkins:Americans use an enormous amount of paper napkins each year. Help reduce this paper waste by switching tocloth napkinsfor your celebration.
Use the Fancy China and Silverware:Ditch the disposable plastic utensils and paper plates. Using your permanentChina plates and silverwarenot only elevates your table setting but prevents single-use waste from ending up in a local landfill.
Hosting & Travel:
Ask Guests to Bring Reusable To-Go Containers:You’re guaranteed to have leftovers! Help your guests take food home sustainably by asking them to bring their ownreusable to-go containersinstead of relying on disposable plastic or aluminum.
Use LED Bulbs:UseLED bulbsto light your celebration. They use significantly less energy and last much longer than traditional incandescent bulbs.
Remember to Recycle:Be mindful of all the extra packaging that comes with holiday groceries and new items. Set aside bins andremember to recycleall eligible packaging instead of throwing it away.
Carpool:If you are traveling or hosting guests, plan tocarpool. By reducing the total number of miles driven individually, you can collectively lower the carbon emissions associated with your holiday travel.
I have been selecting a word of the year for several years now, instead of making a resolution that I forget about before the first week of January comes to a close. It is not always a word that guides me during the year, but focusing on a word has had some power a few times as I was going through some rough patches in life. Grace is a word that I have adopted a few times and I feel like I have grown a lot into accepting things I cannot change and giving myself grace along the way. After a rather rough 2024, I think I need to focus on a new word for 2025. As I look to the year ahead, I know there will be challenges, but I am going to focus on joy this year. I am going to try to allow the frustrations and challenges in life to have less weight than the joy that I will have this coming year. I know I have a blessed life and have been given many opportunities that others have not been given. As I think back over the past year and all the challenges faced, I can see there was more joy than frustrations, I just gave the frustrations power.
In an effort to remember joy first, here is a list of some of the things that brought me joy this past year.
My youngest daughter graduated high school, traveled to Europe, and found the right college for her next chapter. My oldest daughter continues to thrive, impress, and conquer the world. They are both wonderful humans and bring me joy on a regular basis.
I got to celebrate Mariya as she entered the next chapter of her life while hanging out with some of our awesome Harrisonburg team members.
The MTC foundation formed and held its first fundraising event. I was able to support the event through social media promotion and giving time to the organization.
I got to see the Orioles win over the Yankees in dramatic fashion and share the experience with family (not all of which were thrilled with the outcome of the game). We also got to see a lot of fish, which is fun, and should always be part of a baseball game trip to maximize joy.
Another year of supporting WNRN’s books and brewswas a highlight, especially when one of the authors is also one of your clients.
We got to see the finished cabin in West Virginia, the saved historic building in Broadway, the saved porch in Rockingham, the modern house in Rockingham, got a new office in Charlottesville, and started another project at Eastern Mennonite School – all of these and those not mentioned (especially those cool houses we have under construction that I will do updates on later) bring so much Joy!
Fireworks are fun and I had the chance to enjoy some thanks to Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance and the Downtown Lottery. If you like fun things like fireworks you should support HDR too. Downtown also got a lot of new art work to fill our town with joy.
I made it to the Hot Air Balloon festival this year and the weather was nice enough that the balloons got to float away.
Our Rotary Club does amazing work allowing me to serve community through so many events including the Harrisonburg Soapbox Derby and partnering with We Serve at Eastern Mennonite High School to stuff stockings and clean up the highway. The best part of Rotary are the friendships we get to build and the difference we can make together in our community. The sense of joy in making our community better is endless.
We were able to host 12 artists for First Friday and I think they all made a least one sale at their shows. If nothing else, we added exposure to their work and celebrated the beauty of art creation in our community. Supporting local artists is a great source of joy.
I was able to attend a lot of musicals this year including Beetlejuice, Twelfth Night, Tina, Fiddler on the Roof, and Annie. Regardless of what you heard, I enjoy going to see these talented performers.
Dad and I attended our first JMU Men’s basketball games and they won.
I got to attend some amazing concerts to see some amazing talent including Judy Chops, Who Shot John, Wood Brothers, The Steel Wheels, Christone Kingfish, AJR, Almost Monday, mxmtoon, Nickel Creek, Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choir, EMS Touring Choir, and more.
Our clients fast food oriental restaurant finished construction and opened and I got to eat some of their amazing food!
Red Wing Academy brings me so much joy each year playing at our First Friday event in December.
I got a Charlie Brown cake for my birthday!
Our Rotary Club took on the challenge to plant new Peace Poles in the community and register existing Peace Poles on the international Peace Pole map. This effort is so fulfilling, spreading Peace in our world that is so focused on violence. The Peace Pole is an internationally known symbol of Peace and stand as a daily reminder that we each have a role in spreading Peace on Earth. True Joy comes from helping build a stronger community.
I love mentoring, teaching, and sharing about architecture, building science, aging-in-place, using empathy as a design tool, and of course the history of the depot. This past year we hosted job shadow students in our office. I also had the chance to teach at Massanutten Technical Center. On the Road Collaborative students visited our office as did the Bridgewater historical society. We had the Central Virginia chapter of AIA visit the office to hear about our work.
Probably the best joy filled highlight of the year for me is how many times I have had a crowded table at my house filled with family or been invited into April’s house to join her crowded table. It is an awesome blessing in my life to have such a large group of family so close and we even got to spend some time with family from out of the area this year. I may not be the best cook around, but with April by my side (who is an excellent cook), we were able to make several meals that kept everyone happy this year.
Finally, what could be more joy filled that hanging out with Santa! Even better, finding out once again that I am Santa’s favorite Architect.
Photographers work in this blog post include Digital Minerva, Charles Hendricks, Asha Beck, and Herr and Company.
Roger Bryant, who spent over half his life with The Gaines Group, passed away peacefully on May 25, 2024. Roger’s life embodied creativity, adventure, family, and faith, but not in that order.
Roger was a man of deep faith. When I first met and hired him, the list of hobbies on his employment application included Gospel singing with his family as item number one. The depth of his faith became apparent to me as I got to know him over the 33½ years that we worked together.
Roger was a family man, even though he remained single his entire life. He often spoke of his love of family when he would talk about his nieces and nephews and his relationships with his parents, grandparents, siblings, and aunts and uncles. Roger was always there for them as they navigated the good times as well as the illnesses and tragedies of life. He participated in at least three family reunions annually, and typically organized the Labor Day gathering at the family home. He also spoke fondly of the times he spent on the Cowpasture River and at Douthat State Park each year with his family.
Roger was a world traveler. When I first met him, he had just returned from Europe. He spoke of multiple trips to Europe and “the islands”, often traveling to sing with the family. He visited The UK, Germany, and Russia over the years that we worked together, and told many amusing stories arising from these trips. When he retired, he was following his brother-in-law, Bob, on his quest to run marathons in all fifty states, watching the races with his sister, Belva. I do not know if he ever completed that particular quest.
Finally, Roger was a talented designer and mentor. His hands-on knowledge of building materials and his ability to use them in aesthetically and stylistically pleasing ways is a talent that few possess. Roger was comfortable with any style, particularly with Virginia Vernacular. His body of work also includes Georgian, French Provincial, Prairie, Contemporary (whatever that is) and a touch of Art Deco. He would always share that with our younger staff. You have most likely touched Roger’s work from his years as an industrial designer prior to 1989.
Roger’s design talent was not limited to just the built world but he was a genius at floral arranging. He did the flowers for multiple weddings over the years, and would personally arrange sympathy flowers when they were called for.
He was a loyal friend and colleague from the day he started work in January 1989 until his retirement at the end of June 2022. He watched my three daughters grow up, and mentored one of them as an interior designer. He provided a living example to them, and all of us, of how to be a Christian in today’s world.
Architecture can be a demanding profession. There are deadlines, client demands, and even construction emergencies. Design also has a way of infiltrating your very existence, and it can be impossible to shut off your brain when you’re trying to solve a particularly complicated problem (often solved at 3am or in the shower as you turn your vision around and around in your head). It is very hard, if not impossible, to only be an architect from 9-5 on weekdays.
It becomes even more difficult when babies are added to that picture. I was 14 years into my career before I had my son, who was born in 2020. My world turned inside out because while my job / career had been my primary focus for over a decade, now I was hyper-focused on this tiny little babe who had me wrapped around his finger. His sister joined us in 2023, and they bring me more happiness than I ever expected.
Even with the tremendous support of my spouse who is our stay-at-home parent, balancing my career with being a mom is tough. I love what I do, but I’m also determined to always make my time at home count. My kids are already growing up so fast and I don’t want to miss out on time with them. A few things that help me:
Find your village.
Your village may be family, friends, neighbors, or even a network of other parents online (there is both a Parents in Architecture and a Mothers in Architecture group on Facebook). Figure out where you can go to vent or ask questions. Any time we’ve needed help, we’re always surprised at just how big that village can be.
Establish and communicate priorities.
Family always comes first, but there are days / weeks where I need to invest extra time into work to make things happen. I try to clearly communicate with my family the times I might be busy. Conversely, there are times that family priorities get posted to the calendar so that work knows that I am unavailable at those times.
Delegate and outsource.
It’s impossible to do everything. Even with one parent at home, we find ourselves short on time to tackle everything. Being comfortable delegating work to a team member or outsourcing household or yard tasks is important. My husband and I have always been hands-on DIYers, but now with kids, we recognize we can’t do it all and have hired help for portions of our to-do list. At work, finding or training a person you can easily delegate tasks to is important.
Establish routines.
Kids thrive on routines and while I’m the first to break routines on the weekends, we have a pretty good routine during the week. I always get some snuggles in the morning before going to work, and unless there is a rare event, I’m home for bedtime routines.
Make time at home count.
While it’s tough to be active and engaged after a long day at the office, I try to cram a lot of fun things into our weekends. I keep track of a lot of local events and playgroups so that we can have fun together. If I need to work, I try to push it until after the kids have gone to bed. We have already made a lot of great weekend memories!
With architecture being a profession that changes based on clients, jobs, and even design stage, and with kids changing every week as they grow and develop, finding a sustainable balance is something I’m sure will be a continuous struggle, but having a career I love and a family I adore makes it all worth finding that balance.
During a recent weekend, my family and old friends gathered around my parents’ kitchen and blessed the food for the first Christmas party they have hosted since before the pandemic. My parents’ kitchen has always been more than just a place to feed the body. The conversations and laughter that have been shared while my mom whips up medal-worthy meals and my dad whips up his delicacies, like beanie weenie, are some of my favorite memories from growing up. For as long as I can remember, the kitchen has been the central part of the house I grew up in, and during the holidays the warmth I feel there extends to the many people we welcome in from the cold.
Frank Lloyd Wright believed that the hearth was the psychological center of the home. In the past the hearth was where families would gather around for warmth and cook their meals. But, as times have changed, it has become a bit obsolete as the anchor of the home. Central heating takes care of warmth, and the kitchen is now where meals are prepared and shared with loved ones. Someone, who I am sure was equally as wise as Frank Lloyd Wright, once claimed that the way to a person’s heart is through their stomach. So, as the location of where we make meals has shifted, so has the path to our hearts.
Coming home for the holiday season means spending time with family, sharing meals, and catching up on life’s big and little events. The kitchen is often the busiest room in a home and because food is such an important part of familial culture and heritage, the kitchen becomes the most treasured room during the holidays. It is where recipes are passed onto the next generation and family history is made more vibrant amidst delicious smells and tastes. Opening the kitchen to the rest of the home not only increases functionality of the room, but it can also nurture greater interaction among family and friends.
The heart of your home may look very different from mine. We have designed kitchens that double as gathering spaces by using methods like opening them up to other living areas or adding large islands that can still conceal the mess that comes along with holiday cooking. Our work as designers is to ask you specific questions to figure out what would make your kitchen gathering space the dream you have always wanted. From renovation to new construction, we have seen so many different options and know what questions to ask to uncover just the right solution. In the gallery below, you can view a few of the kitchens that we have designed, each for a specific client’s needs.
So, as you gather together this year – if you find yourself thinking, “What if we made this little change?” give us a call to talk about your dream. We would love to help you figure out what is possible and what works best. We would love to help you enhance the heart of your home for future holiday seasons.
If there is one thing we know to be certain, it’s that Adrienne Stronge is no stranger to hard work and setting big goals. As a licensed architect with 16 years of experience under her belt, Adrienne is a respected professional in our industry who credits her entry into architecture to small seeds that were planted throughout her life beginning as early as middle school.
Originally from West Point, Virginia, Adrienne grew up loving to read and research. Her first engagement with the world of architecture came when she participated in a governor’s school program that focused on researching historical regional houses. This experience of researching and building a house model planted a seed as she moved into high school and started paying more attention to the built environment. Also during this time, her family began buying and renovating houses which gave Adrienne a front-row seat to the ways small changes could dramatically affect the way a residence functioned. It was also during Adrienne’s high school career someone told her architecture was a “male profession” and that architecture school would be “too challenging” to get into. To that point, Adrienne fully accepted the challenge and earned early acceptance to one of the top architecture schools, the University of Virginia. Like all new challenges, doubt crept in and Adrienne recalls driving to UVA for the first time second-guessing her decision and the path ahead of her. Once she arrived, Adrienne immediately recalls a feeling of reassurance and an understanding that she was exactly where she needed to be.
Fast forward to her senior year at UVA, Adrienne was busier than she could have ever imagined. While taking a full course load, working four part-time jobs (you read that correctly, four!); she was also in the ecoMOD studio where her team built a modular house in an aircraft hangar. The house was built to be transported to Mississippi to aid in Hurricane Katrina relief and Adrienne traveled to the Gulf Coast three separate times to do relief aid and prep work for the Habitat House. Finding time for interviews was challenging and after talking to a few firms in the area, nothing was feeling like a good fit. That changed when, quite out of the blue, Ray Gaines reached out and asked her to interview at the Gaines Group. As it turns out, a former Gaines Group client who interacted with Adrienne referred her to the firm knowing she would be a good fit. Adrienne recalls the funny experience of not being able to find an interview time amongst all of her commitments and Ray asking her to spontaneously stop by on her way to work on the Habitat House. Ray said he didn’t expect her in interview attire and he wouldn’t hold it against her if and when she showed up in jeans with holes and liquid nail stains, and an old t-shirt. Although Ray was not expecting formal attire, he hadn’t mentioned it to Charles and Paul who questioned why the firm would be interested in hiring someone who showed up in a questionable outfit.
Adrienne officially became a Licensed Architect in 2022
Sixteen years into working at the Gaines Group and Adrienne is a licensed architect with a great depth of experience and a specialization in multi-family design. Her favorite part of being an architect is having an impact on the way people interact with the built environment. She has a special passion for designing environments that ensure accessibility for people of all abilities. This passion stems from a close relationship she had with a family member whose progressive disease confined him to a wheelchair. Adrienne was a first-hand witness to the challenges he navigated interacting with his built environment and the frustrations that came when his opportunities were limited due to accessibility limitations. For this reason, she especially loves working on multifamily projects where she gets to create whole communities with access for everyone throughout the site. These projects create unique challenges when considering accessibility, but Adrienne finds it extra rewarding to solve these design dilemmas. One of her favorite elements to design is accessible pools for people with all abilities to be able to safely enjoy. Additionally, she enjoys focusing on multifamily design as she gets to create smaller, efficient spaces that comfortably fit into an overall design goal while meeting budget constraints.
Outside of being an architect, Adrienne is busy with her family and hobbies. She has been married to her husband Andrew since 2007. Andrew is an artist and an illustrator known for live-printing and local comic-cons and together they travel to many of these local events. In 2020, they welcomed their son Alister to their family and the trips to comic shows have slowed down since having a toddler in tow. Their 16-year-old pug-mix Spudnik is also a beloved family member and together they love traveling and exploring new places. Adrienne has no shortage of hobbies and likes to unwind by reading from her large book collection and doing jigsaw puzzles. She and Andrew have a vintage robot and space toy collection that they enjoy “hunting” for at flea markets, antique stores, and yard sales. Andrew runs their small business buying and selling vintage toys, games, and books, both online and in their booths at a store in Richmond, VA (Odd Balls Collectibles).
