Thanksgiving Day's Reflections

    

Happy Thanksgiving 2008

"O give thanks to the Lord, call on His name; 

make know His doings among the peoples!

1 Chronicles 16:8

What a wonderful day we have had. We started off being able to bless another family with a Thanksgiving flag. Perhaps next year, we will have a new one with more of a sacred theme.

At breakfast, we had pumpkin quick bread which was delicious. I found this recipe off the web along with a variety of ways to make pumpkin bread. This particular recipe caught my attention because the sugar quantity was reasonable.

Here's what we had today for our Thanksgiving Meal.  Both Rob and I prepared it together.

Thanksgiving Meal  

*  Baked whole chicken (stuffed w/celery, onion, garlic and a 1/4 cup of frozen peppers); used the Reynold's cooking bags which always do such a wonderful job and easy clean up.

*  Stuffing - modified the recipe off the back of Martin's Potato Bread Soft Cubed Stuffing; able to utilize the following fresh herbs ~ thyme, sage, rosemary, parsley (off our back porch); added a 12 oz package of cranberries in our double boiler. The cranberries added extra flavoring and coloring to our stuffing.

*  Gravy - Heinz chicken gravy in a jar; quick and easy; very tasty

*  Rolls - bag of 8 from Shoppers; we opted for easy and these do not have a lot of sodium in them. Smart balance butter, the kind with less sodium.

*  Vegetables - fresh mashed sweet potatoes (prepared by Rob; a fantastic job); steamed butternut squash, steam snap peas (in our double steamer); raw zucchini and carrots for Christine; 

*  Fruit - fresh cranberry relish that Rob had prepared; follow the recipe on the bag except we added less sugar; 100% Cranberry juice with Canada Dry Ginger ale mixed together for our beverage

We snacked a little while waiting but not a lot.  After Rob prepared what he needed to prepare, he and Christine watched the movie, "Pocahontas, Her True Story. I continue to put the finishing touches on our meal and added more of our Thanksgiving decorations to our table and around the house.  I had earlier lit some candles which made the whole house seem extra festive.

Then it was time for me to clean up and prepare myself for our meal. On my way upstairs, I shared with Rob and Christine that after our meal, that we would be making our Thanksgiving cards for each other.  At first, both Rob and Christine balked at the idea but quickly changed their minds as I sat out the stamps, ink pads, card stock, construction paper, markers, and special scissors. Rob did confess that it was quite therapeutic. What had inspired me was a card that I found earlier today that I had made for Rob and Christine 4 Thanksgiving ago. We each made 2 cards and now they are scattered throughout our house as a tangible reminder of our love for each other.

So many times, we think of ideas to do at Thanksgiving and perhaps we don't accomplish them or we even say, "I'll wait until next year."  It's also easy to be tempted to allow the snare of perfection to enslave us and detour in celebrating the NOW.  I can say with great certainty that we had an awesome Thanksgiving Day all day long.  We made a lot of wonderful memories all day along.

Late afternoon, my younger brother, John called to wish us a Happy Thanksgiving.  My older brother and his family were in Tulsa to celebrate with John's family.  I so appreciate their calls at Thanksgiving especially since both of our parents are in Heaven, it's very important that we connect at the holidays.  Keith shared that Mary, his wife wants to try to come to Virginia next year for Thanksgiving.  Wow, that would be totally cool!  John also shared that he has a business meeting in Philadelphia on December 11 and wants to try to connect with us around that time.  I'm personally praying that he would stay over and come to his niece's piano recital on the 12th of December. If we just get to see him on the 11th, that would bless this sister's heart immensely. 

You know how it is whenever you have a heart's desire and no one knows about it but when God answers it, you know He did it!  That is how I felt about my brother's extra attention earlier today. At times, the distance between Texas/Oklahoma and Virginia seems great but today such was not the case.  Praise God His answered prayer!

Later on, we called Rob's Mom. She was at Auntie Jackie's house along with other family members from Rob's side of the family. Mom was in good spirits. Our niece from California was in so Mom was able to see both Britta and her brother Stefan. Thanksgiving at Auntie Jackie is always a lot fun plus she an awesome cook.

We also were able to connect with Rob's Dad and Elaine. They had just arrived home. Rob was able to have a good visit with his Dad.

As we concluded our day, Christine watched the DVD, "The Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, a movie we had checked out from the library. We also checked out the book as well. We would highly recommend both the book and the DVD. We will be reading it to Christine this weekend.

God is good all the time and He is faithful period. Even when we don't understand or see what He has in mind, His ways are always best. We pray that each of you have had a blessed Thanksgiving today. 

Thanksgiving blessings from our family to yours!