From our family to yours, we wish all of you a very happy Thanksgiving. May you be surrounded by family, friends, and wonderful food as we celebrate God's hand of providence on our country.
Let us give thanks!
Tom had to leave on a four-day trip this morning at 4:30 a.m., so we had our Thanksgiving celebration yesterday. Due to various circumstances, our extended family was not able to be together this year, so we invited our dear friends, Wayne and Judy Rogers to our Thanksgiving feast. I love to know what other folks serve at their holiday traditions, so I will share ours with you.
Our Menu
First Course
Cream Cheese with Cranberry Sauce and Crackers
Shrimp with Cocktail Sauce
Homemade Eggnog
Second Course
Cabernet Cranberries
Green Salad with Cranberry Vinaigrette and Pecans
Parker House Rolls
Deviled Eggs
Third Course
Turkey
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Praline Sweet Potatoes
Stuffing
Broccoli with Walnuts
Scalloped Corn Casserole
Fourth Course
Pumpkin Pie with Maple Cream
Pecan Pie with Whipped Cream and Vanilla Ice Cream
Before dinner we read a portion of the Pilgrims' story from the book "Thanksgiving, A Time to Remember." Following the third course, we finished our reading, and moved into the dining room for our dessert. Following dessert, we played a game of Similes, Going West, and the Minister's Cat. What we should have been doing was running around the block to burn off all the calories we had just consumed!!!! OH MY!
Books we recommend for your family:
Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford
available at www.visionforum.com
Thanksgiving, A Time to Remember by Barbara Rainey
available at www.familylife.com
THE FIRST THANKSGIVING
On April 30, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the first national day of Thanksgiving. Lincoln stated in his call for a national day of thanksgiving this reason:
"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power, as no other nation has every grown. But we have forgotten God....We have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own....We have become to self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, to proud to pray to the God That made us! It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness."
Following that, on October 3, Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November that year to be set aside as a nationwide celebration. This proclamation stated:
“No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the most high God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy…I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday in November next as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent father who dwelleth in heaven.”
Thanksgiving today is observed as an annual national holiday on the fourth Thursday in November by an act of Congress in 1941.
That, of course, was not the first “Thanksgiving” celebration in America. The first Thanksgiving was that thanksgiving service by the Mayflower Pilgrims when they gave thanks for the first harvest following their landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620:
“On December 22, 1620, they landed on Plymouth Rock. The sea-weary passengers came ashore bringing all their belongings with them. They faced tempest, sleet, snow, hunger, cold, and exposure. They had first to build houses, but soon sickness struck their enfeebled bodies. At one time only seven men were able to work on the sheds which they built to protect themselves. Every second day a grave had to be dug in the frozen ground. So many were sick that those who were well were scarcely enough to care for then. If spring had not come early the colony could have perished entirely, but as it was, half of the settlers were dead and many of the children had become orphans. Their sufferings cold not be described, but their faith remained firm, and with the arrival of spring they praised God. “Above all, there was freedom to worship God, that dearest of blessings. Only half of our company died. The rest were getting well. God was nearer to us than he ever had been in dear old England. He had planted his vine in the wilderness, and the vine of his planting would grow. What more could we ask.” For the pilgrims it was victory at last. They had come through the long winter through God’s grace. The first mild day as March 3rd. The houses had been built, their corn began to grow, but before it ripened they still suffered. Very little food was available. They caught fish, dug clams, snared rabbits, but sometimes had very little to eat. Often they knew not at night “where to have a bit in the morning.” Children cried for bread, strong men grew faint for want of food. Five kernels of parched corn were all that a boy sometimes had for to eat for his dinner, besides an oyster or crab. But they survived and many more come across from England, and the Pilgrim church from Holland eventually joined them, though Robinson never saw them again. It is a testimony to their faith not only that they survived, but that they did not murmur against God in His dealings with them. Their very extremities demonstrated their trust in Him, and calm submission to his wisdom. The first year shows us qualities in their lives that might never have been known hd they not suffered as they did. When eventually they had their first harvest the survival of the colony was assured. It was an occasion of great Thanksgiving to God. The faith of the Pilgrims has been remembered to this day in the life of the nation.”
“As the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, so likewise a cheerful thanksgiver,” John Boys
“Thankless men are like swine feeding on acorns, which, though they fall upon their heads, never make them look up to the tree from which they come,” Jean Daille.
“When he hath all things, he is unthankful; and when he hath nothing, he beginneth to be thankful,” Henry Smith.
“What unthankfulness is it to forget our consolations and to look upon matters of grievance; to think so much upon two or three crosses as to forget an hundred blessings,” Richard Sibbes.
Uncle Jeff and Aunt Jenn were there too
Now that he is 14, Andrew is legally allowed to cruise The Villages in the golf cart. He wasted no time getting Nana to go for a spin with him!
Sarah can't drive yet, but Nana was happy to take her on a ride.
Every kid's favorite part of Christmas -- opening the presents!
When I left for home in the beginning of November, five days after Dad had his stroke, he had no movement at all in his left hand. This picture was taken 8 weeks after the stroke, and I'm so happy to report that his progress has been quite remarkable! Thank you to everyone who prayed for him!
