Thanksgiving 2014

This Thanksgiving was our sweetest one yet.  In the 15 years Brad and I have celebrated Thanksgiving together, only two of them have been with extended family.  Those have been my faves, and when it has just been our little family, it always seems a little empty to me and that something is missing.  So learning from our past mistakes, we decided to change things up a little.  The first thing we did was be sure to plan.  That really helped.  Brad is not into traditional Thanksgiving dinners, but the children are, so we decided that everyone should have a "say" in the menu.  We wrote down, "Side dish", "dessert" and "drinks" on enough slips of paper and everyone drew one.  They would get to decide that course of the meal, and they would also have the responsibility to help prepare it. 

Brad drew dessert and chose an English Trifle, he was lucky that Amalie wanted to make it for him.  Noah drew dessert and chose banana cream pie.  He was also lucky in that Amalie, Gabe and I made the crusts and he sliced the bananas and made the pudding and put it all together.  He loved it!  Amalie and I also decided to surprise Brad by making a coconut cream pie on the sly for him.  I was shocked that we actually managed to surprise him.  For some reason, he didn't even notice it in the fridge!  Amalie drew "side dish" and decided to make a jello salad concoction.  She layered Cool Whip, cherry and raspberry jello cubes and berries.   It was good!  Gabe chose "drink" which was what he was desperately hoping he would get and picked out Root Beer and Strawberry Lemonade.  He was so excited and asked me every day if we could break open the soda. 

It was a blessing for me that the children were so invested, because they were a fantastic help with the food.  Usually its just me in the kitchen, and I end up feeling frustrated that everyone is on vacation but mom.  So this year was awesome, and the children really enjoyed it and were happier too. 

We started the day with a devotional on gratitude.  We listened to a part of Pres. Monson's talk where he quotes the story of Jesus healing the 10 lepers and only 1 came back to thank him.  It was so great to discuss that with the children and then we did an activity where we took a page of paper and tried to individually fill up the page with all the things we are thankful for, and then we challenged them to thank Heavenly Father in their prayers that day for those things.  We also encouraged the children that day that with each prayer we had to only thank for things and not ask for anything.  It was such a spiritual experience.  Noah was the first when he closed our scripture study prayer and it was one of the sweetest prayers I have ever heard from him.  The Spirit was so strong, giving us a feeling of peace and love.  It felt like we were finally celebrating Thanksgiving instead of merely feasting on yummy food.  It was fabulous.

I told Brad that it was really important to me that the downstairs was clean when we sat down to eat.  So, with that, we all cleaned up the downstairs and Brad decided to break out a really fun toy he had bought for them to play with while they waited for the food.  It was these little wood strips, and they played with them forever!  My kids are so creative, it was so fun to see the creations they came up with- a boat, a treehouse, houses, all kinds of things.  I was amazed, because when I first saw that toy, I thought it was a piece of junk, really.  But man, I love feeling like I am seeing into their brains when I look at their creations.

There was just a really sweet feeling in the house.  Everyone helped clean up, which, usually they all take off and I am stuck with the mess.  And then I get pretty ticked off.  But this year, we insisted that everyone help.  It was wonderful for me.  Brad and I actually got to play a game after dinner while the children watched a movie.  It was heaven!  We love playing board games but rarely ever play.  It was such fun.  Then we had dessert together.  It was just a wonderful day. I'm so glad we are finally figuring out how to work things right for our family!