THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving, to me, means giving thanks to our Heavenly Father for all His many blessings. It's one of the few holidays that isn't commercialized to death. It just comes natural to thank Him. He gives to us, we say 'thanks'. No one is trying to browbeat us to buy-buy-buy! It only requires the simplicity of a bowed head or knee to say "Thank you, Jesus". There's no fakeness or going into debt or stress here - just family and friends gathering together to eat and say our blessings. It's opening up our hearts to God and to one another. It's realizing that we are blessed regardless of our circumstances. It's admitting there is a God and He's kept us going all this time. It's knowing we need Him desperately in our lives and seeing how large a part He is willing to play if we'll just let Him.

Whether we are praying aloud or just whispering a prayer in our hearts , it's just knowing that He has waited patiently for years to get to know us, and all the while He was still blessing us.

In everything give thanks, for God is good

I'm a believer in holding true to tradition. Despite all the hard work, cleaning, cooking and tiredness. I still love it when the family gathers in our home for Thanksgiving dinner. We have a lot of memories to pull from and we all like to sit around the living room, after the meal, and recall them. We laugh a lot down our memory lane! As is typical in most families, the men gather round the tv while the women are in the kitchen. The kids are in and out and all over the house while someone is trying to steal a piece of turkey as they pass through the kitchen!

Our menu doesn't very much from year to year. We all have our favorites and we pretty much stick to that same menu: turkey, cornbread dressing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, broccoli-rice casserole, pumpkin pie, chocolate sheet cake, and plenty of other dishes thrown in. What matters most is celebrating our abundance with the people we love. There's nothing like a holiday meal to bring the family together and believe me, our dinner is worthy of the season!

We don't serve alcohol in our home. It just doesn't seem right to be praising and thanking Jesus for all our blessings with alcohol on our breaths. Never seems to bother anyone!

Jesus is the reason for the season!

I don't think anyone ever leaves our home hungry or not thanking the Lord for all our blessings, which are many. Our stomachs may be full but so are our hearts - full of love for one another and for God, from whom all our blessings flow.