Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is just a couple days away and J and I head out to visit the family in Florida before sunrise tomorrow! Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday for so many reasons other than our excellent meal. My family does thanksgiving really really well. I am not just being biased. They used to host the most extravagant Thanksgiving dinners at the Inn and invited what seemed to be hundreds of people when I was little....probably on average 40-50 plus the 100 children. I guess these years of so many food contributions and experiments evolved into the most perfect assembly of sides and turkey for our annual feast. Another reason our Thanksgivings were just so wonderful is because we love Jesus and we are so incredibly thankful for His gift, provision, and love and this spirit shines through us all during this time...or maybe it's the constant flow of mimosas...either way! 

So aside from our wonderful feast and family, these are some of the reasons Thanksgiving is just my absolute favorite! 

One: After 10 1/5 months of anticipation, Thanksgiving morning, the oh so longed for moment...my dad turns on our beloved Handle's Messiah. When I think about Christmas, I think about the messiah. Those familiar 7-10 notes that open the Sinfonia give me chills down my spine. Saving the messiah for Thanksgiving morning and through Christmas preserves how beautiful it is. It is never overplayed and the meaning is that much more prominent. It is my favorite holiday tradition. 

Two: Baking. One things that my parents did so well was invite their children to join in the excitement and responsibility of preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. Since we were little, we have all partaken and contributed to our dinners. There in nothing more exciting for a child than the praise you receive from your well done contribution. Thanksgiving morning is just a sweet time of coffee, messiah, and baking with my mom and sisters before my dad takes over the kitchen domain. In addition to this baking...after Thanksgiving we get to make Christmas cookies and the same wonderful mornings with my mom, sisters and christmas music (usually by this time we have expanded past just the messiah) carry on. 

Three: Decorating. We have always done nature inspired table decorations. We used to scavenge for berries, leaves, pine cones, and whatever else we could find to decorate alongside of candles and beautiful place settings. This was always so fun and an adventure. One time, on Thanksgiving morning in Rome, GA, my sister and I go to take some berries from the landscaping of a local shopping mall. Feeling like we were committing some awful crime we were trying to be discrete and we actually got pulled over on the way home because a couple cops saw us suspiciously sneaking around in the bushes. I don't think there was ever anything more awkward and embarrassing than trying to convince that cop that we were just getting table decorations for dinner...at least we had the berries to prove it. So decorating has always been very fun. But in addition to table decorations, my parents save all Christmas decorating until after Thanksgiving. It gets harder and harder to wait the older I get because the "holiday" season in society begins November 1st it seems and it is just a tease. But it is just so exciting to come home from Thanksgiving and break out the Christmas gear, hang the wreaths, set up the tree and pull out the most precious little handmade nativity. Our house has never been very over the top with the decorations. A lot of wonderful smelling balsam fir wreaths and maybe a garland on the mantel, a simple charlie brown tree decorated so beautifully, poinsettias and the few favorite treasures. I like it this way. 

From here on we start to get into the Christmas traditions and I will save that for another post. I am really excited this year because it is Js and my very first Thanksgiving and Christmas as a married couple and I am so excited to see our own traditions form. I am slowly bringing J around to the excitement of the holidays. His grinch heart is growing...jk he has never been a grinch, just never cared that much about the holiday festivities since I have known him. That is all changing.