Of my almost 28 years, only a three of my Thanksgivings have not been spent with my family; one being last year and two as a teenager. My family is one of those that does the same thing each year and eat the same traditional food…down to the pies and the fruit, marshmallow, and whip cream salad. And I love it.
This year, of course, was not spent with my family and while the thought made me a little lonely, we were blessed to spend it with friends. We had turkey but it wasn’t exactly traditional according to my family traditions. Mostly, I think that was a good thing because I think here we just need to start new traditions if we are to feel at home.
So our friends spent the day, with the men working on building the island for our kitchen, mamas making food amidst some play and art breaks with children.
Thanksgiving art
Little Friends
Hunting acorns
Decorating our thanksgiving table; a row of plywood set on saw horses, but out on our veranda with a beautiful view so redneck with a touch of class:)
Our finished table
Writing on our thankful leaves
Hungry girls eating up baked squash, sauteed cabbage (recipe coming), rice stuffing, homemade applesauce and cranberry sauce...with their favorite part; the turkey!
Beautiful food and beautiful friend!
Pretending to work.
Thanksgiving Apples for our neighbors horses.
Mini pumpkins filled with pumpkin spice custard.
The thankful tree
How the boys spent their day.
I had intended to write more but even though it is Wednesday, I am still too tired. I will note though that it was a wonderful weekend and while all of these pictures look quite tranquil we weren’t without our moments of chaos. Like when in the final prep moments of supper, one child had a melt down over not going with Daddy to the hardware store and while dealing with that, another child climbed up and dropped a plate off the table. Only to start playing with the broken shards. And yes, they both belonged to me. Still the picture are fairly accurate, those slightly crazy moments are much surpassed by the beautiful!
We had fun! Thanks for letting us join in and be a part. Loved the thankful tree with it’s serious meaning and the belly laughter it also brought. And I cut my hair because while it may not look like a mullet in those pictures, it was pretty close to Justin Bieber 🙂
So beautiful!!!!
I agree w/ what you said about starting new traditions making it feel more like home! Happy Thanksgiving (a little late) to you my friend!
Oh, and I JUST listened to your phone message yesterday, and yes, LeAnn had her baby LOL although I’m sure you knew that by now. Would love to chat soon, what’s a good time of day for you?
*grin* Usually I love photos for seeing the peace in moments when there was little to be had…other times I just wish I could make people believe me when I tell them how different it was in reality 😉
I definitely agree about finding new traditions: I’ve found that replicating the experience of the large, traditional family dinner just isn’t possible without the people, which makes the stress of getting the food and the decorations (etc.) EXACTLY the way one’s family used to a bit effete. Far better to just keep some elements while embracing a lot of new ones. Tried that this year. Was much better.