It seems that Thanksgiving has increasingly gotten lost between Halloween and Christmas. I'm not sure why but I'm pretty sure that it isn't a good thing. Thanks giving is a quiet, reflective holiday. Maybe that in itself is part of the reason that it seems to get lost. It's not a "gimme" holiday. Yet, it may be the holiday we need most.We need to slow down, to reflect on goodness, and to learn and express gratitude. Slow down long enough to look around and actually pay attention to our surroundings and, more importantly, the people in those surroundings. Spend some time pondering the goodness of our lives and learning to express gratitude.
In our own life, Thanksgiving is not as special as I want it to be. Part of that is because we haven't ever really had our own traditions. Some years we go to Jeff's Dad's family get together and some years we have spent with friends. I've tried to make some traditions, like our Thankful Tree.
Each year, Gracen makes a tree trunk out of paper and cuts out leaf shapes. At dinner each evening from the first of November until Thanksgiving, we each write down one thing on a leaf that we are thankful for. After about the first week, we've gone through the "easy" things (family, love, God's blessings, etc.) and are forced to delve a little deeper. It has been really uplifting to see the tree fill out. We have fun going through the scrapbooks where I've kept some of the leaves from each year and reading what we had written.
Another tradition that we started a few years ago was reading Thanksgiving books during the month of November. I am always on the lookout for good, quality Thanksgiving books. Here are some of the ones we've enjoyed so far:
Thanksgiving A Time to Remember by Barbara Rainey
This is great coffee table book gives a historical look and Thanksgiving and came with a CD of Thanksgiving music.
The First Thanksgiving by Jean Craighead George
The pictures in this book are beautiful (there's lots to look at and lots of art lessons
that can be learned from these pictures). I do have to do a bit of editing and explaining
when we read this one because the first page talks about the huge boulder (Plymouth
Rock) being a hundred million years old. (Of course, this a personal view!)
An Outlaw Thanksgiving by Emily Arnold McCully
This Caldecott Medal winner is the story of a young girl and her mother riding a train
in 1896. They are on their way to meet Father for Thanksgiving. The train gets
stuck in a snowstorm and they are forced to share Thanksgiving with strangers--one of whom is Butch Cassidy.
If You Were At The First Thanksgiving by Anne Kamma
This is a new one this year and I have briefly looked over it. It gives details about
life during the first Thanksgiving.
And, now for Gracen's absolute favorite Thanksgiving book...
Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin
A great little book about Maggie, her grandmother, a fellow named Mr. Whiskers,
and Grandmother's secret Cranberry bread recipe. The story is delightful and
well-written. The artwork is great and it includes the secret recipe for the bread!
This is a must read for us each year.
I'd love to know if you have any favorites--please share!
4 comments:
Very ironic! I posted today about our Thanksgiving tree. :0) Another irony, I just read the same First Thanksgiving book to Lyndal yesterday. :0)
Two of my favorites are THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS by James Daugherty (one of those great Landmark books) and one that you might want to save for a little later but a really good book to read, OF PLYMOUTH PLANTATION by William Bradford (we have this one). Any of the Landmark books are great...at least all we've read.
Thank you for this post. I want to emphasize Thanksgiving more. Hannah Beth wants to know why we have Thanksgiving and isn't impressed with the "it's a time to be thankful" answer. I think reading some great books and the Thanksgiving tree that you, Tina, and others do will be helpful - and fun :)I'm going to draw a tree to put in our kitchen right now!
I dont have a book for you, but a Thanksgiving tradition that I miss was at the Thanksgiving church service, we would all write down things we were thankful for. Some we would burn up at the front of the church, others we would go and give to people in the service. It was incredible and I miss sharing in that so much. I still have some notes I received from friends over the years.
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