This year, on 22nd November (which is now three weeks ago) we celebrated Thanksgiving along with our family (and friends) in America. It might seem strange to do so, not being American and with the reason behind much of why thanksgiving happened in the first place, however we have a lot to be thankful for, and looked forward to the opportunity to have a day dedicated to thankfulness, and especially as it was intended, to praising God for all that he has done for us. A primary reason for us also was that we have a sister and brother (with family) in the States, along with many others that we love, and this was another opportunity to be a bit nearer to them by sharing in some of the things that they would be doing, albeit many many miles away. Our family in America we have to spend time with in different ways to get to know one another and be close to them, as we just don't get to see each other in person.
Well, thank you to all of you that shared your own thanksgiving traditions with us. Thank you Debbie for your especially thoughtful response. We enjoyed reading them and there are some that we didn't manage this year that we might well try out in the future as we are hoping this will also become a tradition for us. It is fun to know the kind of things you would be doing.
That week wasn't my best of weeks, nor that day my best of days (in terms of how I was feeling), but we kept things simple and had a lovely time. We had looked at the history of thanksgiving over the previous few days and the children enjoyed learning something about the colonialists/pilgrims and what was effectively the first thanksgiving. That was really a harvest festival to us, and our meal reflected that partly. We did in the end go with partly 'traditional' food for our celebration meal. We enjoyed a free-range chicken (not turkey!), and mashed potato, gravy, cranberry sauce (we made our own in the end so that it would fit in with our no-sugar diet!), green beans, carrots, a big mixture of roasted vegetables - parsnips (mmm!), peppers, mushrooms, leek, sweet potatoes, garlic, etc., and then a baked butternut squash with some soya mince and cheese. Oh, and we also had sweetcorn (corn-on-the-cob) which Peter was especially thankful for! We didn't eat the squash in the end - we had that over the next couple of days instead along with some of the left-over veg. We had chosen some fruit we really like for dessert, but really didn't want it in the end as we were so full, so kept that for another day too! In future we might go for apple pie for a dessert, and I have a recipe for pumpkin pie (no sugar again) that we'll try out at some point, but maybe when we grow our own again in the next couple of years!
Rachel and Hannah really enjoyed helping out with preparing our meal and decorating the table in the morning while the little ones played and Peter had his nap. Then before our meal we had a few pieces of corn on our plates and thought about how the pilgrims for a long time really didn't have much food (like many others in the world now). We each took turns putting a piece of our corn into a glass as we shared things that we were each thankful for, until the corn was all gone, and we then had a special prayer of thanks. Then we filled the table with food that we really were thankful for (partly as it's food we don't normally get to eat!) We had coloured leaves decorating our table as a reminder of all things natural that we are also very thankful for.
We went for a walk in some woods near our home during what was left of the afternoon, and enjoyed exploring a part we hadn't visited before, which came out into a lovely grassy clearing in the middle. We gathered some fresh holly while we were there - that was the first of our Christmas decorations to go up that evening when we got back home. That was our only decoration for a while, tied up with some Christmassy ribbon, as despite our intentions to follow the tradition of decorating for Christmas right after thanksgiving, we had a lot happening here at the same time and didn't get organised enough - maybe next year?! I did manage to paint over some of our walls the day before though while Michael and the children went to visit their Nanny, so the house was looking pretty smart!
We finished off our day with tea/dinner and a pyjama party - we watched a video while enjoying some popcorn - all of us in our pyjamas. :o) That's one of our family traditions that the children sometimes choose for birthdays, and that we tend to do on Boxing day (day after Christmas day) and now sometimes at least for Thanksgiving too!
We hope all of you that are American enjoyed your own celebrations. It was nice to be thinking about you all in a different way while celebrating along with you. Somewhat belatedly, Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
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1 comment:
thanks for sharing that. I loved hearing about your thanks giving. I ended up in bed toughing out strep throat! but I loved getting to see pictures of yours I love your idea of a dau of thankss too. I love your blog and I check it often to check on you and your fam.
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