Thanksgiving Thoughts

This Thanksgiving two of our children were in other states.  Actually a state.  Pretty far from home, but close in our hearts like many, many other families were experiencing for a multitude of reasons.  Two others were  celebrating  elsewhere and not able to come.  But this Thanksgiving also brought extended family here to us for the first time - for their first Thanksgiving from halfway around the world.  And it reminded me that each day, holiday or not, provides new opportunities for me to relate to new and old friends and family.  Instead of wishing for the time when all the children were "under foot" and we were all together (yes, every Mom's wish!), I realized that one of the blessings of grown children is that your family keeps growing in numbers.  Even if you don't have grandchildren being born, the grown ones are making new friends, getting married and adding "in-loves" to the family, connecting with new coworkers or roommates or classmates.  And it dawned on me this Thanksgiving that I am thankful for new connections.  New opportunities to pray for, and with, and about, wonderful, unique, beautifully created people that just last Thanksgiving I didn't know, or knew to a lesser extent.  What a wonderful gift.  The gift of new connections.  The gift of opportunity to share life and share heartaches and share laughter and share memories with old friends and new alike.  As a young girl scout we used to sing this song on the camp bus, "Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold."  How very true.  But for the believer, it also has a deeper meaning.  Connection with fellow believers brings deeper ties than even the best friendship - it brings true sisterhood and brotherhood that is eternal.  It brings a shared purpose for ourselves, a shared burden for others, a shared joy in Christ, and a shared beautiful, wonderful, amazing perspective on the true meaning and value of life itself.

Thank you, Jesus Christ, for this day, for these many days, where You have added to that treasure in my heart called fellowship.  Thank you for Your Salvation, Your guidance, Your love that blossoms in that sweet temporary fellowship that is only a glimpse of the perfect fellowship to come.  Help us, O Lord and Master, to seize the opportunity to expand the fellowship in whatever way you put before us.  Help us not to get caught up in the temporary filling of our bellies with worldly things but to keep our eyes on the beauty of the eternal, so that none will be left out of the feast to come.  -Amen.

PS - Thankful Tree

This morning we took down our "Thankful tree" and various other Thanksgiving decorations that the children made. We're preparing for Christmas decorations to come but since I keep telling my children that Christmas should be Thanksgiving (ie what better time to be thankful for God's great gifts than when we celebrate HIS most precious gift to us) I'm listing here what was on each leaf of our thankful tree:
Clouds
Fruit
Aunts & Uncles
Music
Grandma
$$
Friends
Flowers
Dad
Bible
GOD
Family
Light
Cousins
Dark Chocolate (No, that one wasn't mine!!)
Obedient, Thoughtful, Good Spelling, Hard-working Children (Only one from Dad!)
Jesus
Mom & Dad
Emma, Russ, Ethan, Matt, JoJo and Katy
Trees
Mom
Water
Doctors
God's Love for Us
Batteries
Brothers & Sisters
Food
Hospitals
The Bible
A Mom that Loves Us
Snow
A car & clothes
A Father's Care
Opportunities
Trees & Flowers
A mother's love
Our church
Coffee
A God of Second chances
Fire
Brothers & Sisters
Freedom
Emma
Police

As we begin the Christmas season, my prayer is that our family will continue to count the real blessings in life and not the presents. I'd love ideas about how your family does that, too.
-F

2010 Thanksgiving Tree

One of our holiday traditions that we love is making a 'Thanksgiving Tree". Lots of families do this, so I know it is not unique but it has made its way into the "absolute musts" of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Today is December 1st so we dismantled the tree that we began a month ago and completed on Thanksgiving Day. For the past several years, we had "deleafed" the tree on Thanksgiving Day to take the leaves down to Grandma's for the meal. This year we had the meal here so we left it intact until today. Here are the items on the leaves (no particular order):
tape
computer
monkeys
snow
Jesus dying on the cross for our sins
Mom and Dad
Dr. Jones and his family
Men at Franklin Jail
His love
Honey
Israel
A good brain for school and things
Mom, Dad, Gran, Russ, Matt, Katy, JoJo, Ethan, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins
My son Eeff
Oxygen
Family
John Wieland & Co.
A free country
Plants
Friends & Animals
My sister Wanda & her family
The lovely, gracious and talented Miss Em
My son Russ and His wife Katy
Uncle Carl
My son Matt
Brooke
Craig Custer
My daughter Joanna
The Holy Spirit
Jesus
Cars & Trucks
Fruit
Kirsten :)
Emma Kate - bff & ss
Jesus
Gentleness, self-control
Faith
Jesus
Chocolate
mercy
Miss Emma's short bread
Love, joy, goodness, kindness, patience and peace
The cross
Love
GOD!!!!
a house
The chickens
Birds
heaven
Pumpkin pie
Legos, nerfs, star wars and other things
Ramein noodles
Prayer
Flowers
Everything
creating me
our pecan trees
Matt, Russ, Katy, JoJo, Emma and Ethan
Hope
Food
Pecan Pie
Emma, Jojo, Matt, Russ, Aunt Wanda, Uncle Craig, Mom, Dad, Gran, Brookie, Beanie, Barbie, NeeKee
Art
Wind
Chocolate Pecan Pie
Flowers
Love, Faith, Kindness, Gentleness, The Holy Spirit, Bible, Jesus and everything good in the eyes of God
Pumpkins
An awesome family
Turkeys
Books
Grits
Friends
Rain
Silly, crazy, hyper, lovable NeeKee
Eyes, ears, legs, arms, healthy bodies
No cavities!!
Pineapples
Peace
Tools
Snow
Eggs
Electricity
hair
Time together
Sunshine
Crackers
Prayer
Syrup
Bread
GRACE
A loving family
Bacon
Water
Animals
Vegetables
Lions
My family
A Godly church
Men's Bible study
Salvation
The Bible
Home
Friends
Emma, Ethan, Mrs Faye, Derwin, JoJo
Smiles
peanut butter
Wii
Grapes
YOU
Thanksgiving
batteries
Acorns
My Mother Gran
Ice Cream
My loving wife Faye
My parents, Nana and Grandaddy
Ninjas

Whewww!!

What a very busy but wonderful week last week!
D was off from "work" so we dug 383 holes with a 3' auger, mixed lime by the shovelful into the dirt from the holes, refilled the holes and marked the exact location of the tree for each one. Wednesday I came in from that job at dark, made salads (7 Layer and apple cranberry), tea, pecan pies and a pineapple casserole for Thursday's Thanksgiving meal. The next morning we started back in digging, liming and filling as soon as it was light enough for us to see. I put out the rolls to proof about 8am, and by 10am came in to clean up and finish cooking - peeling 15 pounds of potatoes to cream, making pumpkin pies, and baking the casserole before our 1pm lunch. Wow, oh wow, did Gran outdo herself again with scrumptious turkey and dressing and yams, in addition to my food and my SIL's great fudge pies, beans, peas, collards and cherry pie on top! After eating our fill and doing the dishes, I had a most wonderful time with all 6 of my children (I'm counting my soon-to-be daughter-in-law already because I love having her as one of "my children"!!). We played Apples to Apples, ate more dessert, talked, laughed, ate another piece of pie, played more Apples to Apples and finally called it quits on both the games and food!

Friday we finished digging, liming, refilling and measuring tree holes (along with doing dishes here left over from Thursday). Saturday my youngest daughter and I had a special day together with lots of good girl talk while we traveled to and from my "other Matt's" house to see the new baby that EK and I tried to bring home, but even with sleep deprivation Matt, Lindsey and Lindsey's Grannie wouldn't give her up! So we had to settle for lots of good memories of holding that little precious one and giving Lindsey a birthday hug, too. If they lived closer they might have to worry about us trying to sneak her away!

Sunday was another wonderful shower for Russ and Katy. Aunt Wanda, "Aunt" Janet (she's a cousin but all my children call her "Aunt") and Gran really had a shower that was fit to be in a magazine it was so beautiful and the food so good. I am just overwhelmed at how blessed I am to have such a remarkable, loving, creative and generous family!

This week will be busy, too, as we strive to get the house back into order after a week of neglect last week, start to decorate for Christmas, deal with computer printer problems, hair appointments, getting some work done on the van, regular things like piano and dance and Awanas, and have a few things to do for wedding preparations, too. [BTW, for those who knew about Ethan's accident, his leg was not broken but the bone was chipped. Praise! Thanks for the prayers and notes. He's back up and running (literally) now!]

Have a great start to December!

Thanksgiving Crafts and "Good Reads"

For Thanksgiving each year for the past few years we pull out the Nest Family VHS of "William Bradford", watch it, and do some of the activities from the accompanying book. I got both the tape and the study guide for $5 several years ago on consignment at a homeschool book store.

We also have a "Thankful Tree" where each day each child takes a construction-paper leaf cutout (children can draw and cut out their own when old enough) and write or draw something they are thankful for that day. The leaves get taped together on our French doors above where I put a "trunk" that says "I Am Thankful For...." They love watching the tree "grow" each day. On Thanksgiving Day, they take turns reading the "leaves" to the family and friends. This year we didn't have any brown construction or butcher paper for the trunk so my creative 9 yo ran and got an empty gift paper tube to use for the trunk - she and her brother even cut out a hole in the middle for a "squirrel hole" !

Along with the Thanksgiving and Harvest theme each year for the past few years we have read "The Little Red Hen" and had the children do a finger puppet play of the story. Make your own from felt like these or from paper like these.

We also like to make turkeys from apples, pine cones or just tracing our hands/feet onto card stock. We usually make place cards like these or similar just a day or two before Thanksgiving, and sometimes make napkin rings from construction paper with corn kernels or leaf prints. One of my favorite websites for ideas and crafts is THIS one. Last year we did a "mini-lapbook" with a map of the Mayflower's journey, a diagram of the Mayflower, a craft using lentils, construction paper and paint to make a picture of Indian corn, collected and studied about sassafras (it grows wild here), and colored a nice picture of the Pilgrims in prayer for the cover. I got most of the ideas and copies from the internet from sites like these and these.

Our favorite Thanksgiving books and stories are Samuel Eaton's Day and Sarah Morton's Day, The First Thanksgiving (an easy reader that the youngest reader in the family gets to read aloud the first year they learn to read) and excerpts from Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford. We also have a wonderfully written story of Squanto in one of our short-story books. William Bradford's Prayer of Thanksgiving or Abraham Lincoln's Declaration of Thanksgiving are amazing historical documents that can be read aloud on Thanksgiving Day to reinforce the importance of the season. After living overseas years ago and having to work on Thanksgiving Day I am acutely aware of the blessedness and honor of celebrating this holiday. What a wonderful reminder to all of us of our Godly Christian heritage in this country that is being all but forgotten lately.

May you and your family have a very wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving season!

One More Reason to Be Thankful

Yesterday I thought I "had it all together" and was quite pleased that I not only got 3 different salads made, everything ready to cook pies, rolls, potatoes and corn this morning (we were eating at noon), made tea, did laundry and washed dishes (twice), but also had time to go help my MIL with last-minute cleaning at her house where we were all scheduled to go eat lots and lots and lots. So here's what a reminder I got for focusing on the wrong things - my hubby's transmission went completely out, we need to get my daughter's car re-inspected after several things get fixed, and we found out a friend was ill and wouldn't be able to join us. No big deal, though. Well, shortly before midnight (yes, we were still awake), I see car lights flying down our path toward my MIL's house. Hmmmm... she had eaten dinner with us and been back at home for several hours so who could be going there at this late hour? We called her house to check on her and my niece answered the phone. My SIL and my nieces were in the "flying car" rushing to get my MIL to rush her on to the ER. She had gone out her back steps (and not turned on the light so she wouldn't wake the cat!!!), mis-stepped, and fell headfirst into a very hard, very wooden table. Long night short, after numerous tests and no less than 8 hours in the ER she returned home with 14 staples in her head! Yikes!! Thanksgiving cancelled? Oh, no! She insisted on cooking the turkey and dressing (with some help from family) and we were all very acutely reminded of how blessed we are and how very quickly life can be snatched away or dramatically changed in a matter of mili-seconds. So today we gave thanks for many, many things but most of all for the fact that my MIL did not pass out (as blood gushed from her head) before she could call for help and that she will be fine in a few days. My 8yo did her Ralph Waldo Emerson poem again and then later told us she wanted to add "and for ....(name of each family member) , Father in heaven we thank Thee." Says it all, huh?

Quick Update....

We've been a busy bunch here as I'm sure you all have, too. Over the weekend D returned from his trip to Texas, we had some of the older children home visiting Sunday afternoon, my oldest got lots of pics posted to his website from his Japanese trip, the youngest two and I participated in a Thanksgiving Feast on Monday with lots of crafts, good food, great fellowship and even had a slight shower of rain as we were giving Thanks to God for His blessings! How neat is that?! EK said the whole Emerson poem "Father In Heaven We Thank Thee" and she will have a repeat performance of it on Thursday. Today we are trying to finish our Thanksgiving Folders (like lapbooks), EK has her acro class, lots of laundry to catch up on with J home :) , and a homeschool leaders meeting tonight. Tomorrow will be one last dash to the grocers for a few items I forgot last Friday, some errands to run and prepping a congealed cranberry salad (with pecans of course!!) for Thursday's lunch at MIL's. Now I know most people have their big Turkey and fixin's at dinner time but I really like the Creech family tradition of having it at lunch. We say it's because that way we can all head off in different directions to the "other sides of the family" but mostly I think it's because it gives us an excuse to eat such a scrumptious meal twice in one day! Have a very Blessed Thanksgiving and count your blessings every day!