Giving Thanks

I've thought a little about what Glenn Beck said on his show earlier this week about Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving is two-fold---Being geneuinely thankful and being giving.  Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday---it brings the family together with lots of yummy food, games and activities.  And it truly is a time for giving thanks and contemplating our many blessings.  Until listening to Glenn Beck, I don't recall ever consciously thinking about the "giving" part of Thanksgiving, other than in the context of "giving thanks".  It has given me something to think about. 

Thanksgiving definitely didn't turn out the way I anticipated and planned it here in Montana.  We originally expected all our family home except Scott.  That would have been a household of 17 for the weekend, plus 6 more for Thanksgiving dinner.  The big winter storm and travel advisories changed all of that.  Our guest list dwindled from 23 to 4 (the two of us and Granny & Grampa).  But we had one whomping turkey!  Look at this!  Since we couldn't be together for Thanksgiving, Lori suggested we all post our Thanksgiving pictures on our blogs to share.  Here's our pictures.

We were going to put the turkey on a platter in the middle of the table for an impressive picture, but we couldn't move the turkey without it falling apart and it wouldn't fit on our platter.  So we left it in the roaster pan.

These are the chalkboard vases we made for centerpieces.  We were supposed to write on the vases with chalk what we were thankful for, then have a sharing time around the Thanksgiving table.  Wouldn't you know it, I couldn't find my one piece of chalk to write on the vases, so we decided to ditch these centerpieces and use the centerpiece that Denny won yesterday in a drawing at his work-dinner-party.  You may guess that we had an amusing time preparing dinner. 

Yes, we did. 

I invited all the family to send me a list of what your family members would have written on the vases, and I would share it on my blog.  Well, so far I have a list of 3 items.

     1.  Scott -- "being at the top of the food chain"-- so as to not be pursued by predators

     2.  Denny -- "that people don't have wattels (the red thing that hangs down from the neck of a turkey)" 

     3.  Karren "windows" -- because I can look out each day and find something new to enjoy or wonder at

Did you all check out Beth & Kent's blog and see the pretty table settings with the favors and name cards that Beth made for their Thanksgiving feast?  Beth, you are so creative.  Beth was making the favors and name cards for our anticipated big Thanksgiving in Montana.  Thanks for sharing on your blog, Beth.  Your table settings looked very pretty.

Sorry about the lower right blurry but Karren got turkey grease on the lens and we had to clean it to get more pictures.  That is probably how fat affects all of us.  Notice that in this picture all our plates are full and in the next picture they are empty.  Notice that we didn't make hardly a dent in the monkey bread or in any of the other food that you cannot see here.

 After delicious feast, we are left to a warm afternoon and some pleasant reading and listening to holiday music.