Thanksgiving...giving...

Dear Ones,
 Don't you just love the vintage turkey and it's little keeper?? How sweet they are! My thoughts are continuing to be with Thanksgiving. I have been thinking of the sights and sounds of Thanksgiving. When our children were little they used to be so excited that the cousins would be home for Thanksgiving. sometimes my sister and her family would stay in our home so they would get there on Wednesday evening. The house would be a flurry of activity. First,  I would have all the girls help me get most of the baking done before the cousins arrived. We would spend the week before getting all the groceries and all the little gifts purchased.
  We would always have an ornament exchange on Thanksgiving that way everyone would have something new to place on the tree each year. The kids also would each get a Christmas book to read during the upcoming holiday season. It was such fun, much squealing, as each child rejoiced with their new books and new ornaments. Once the kids had outgrown the books (does that ever really happen?) we then only exchanged ornaments and do so to this day.
  We spent many a holiday season reading those books over and over again. After Christmas I would tuck the books away and by the next Thanksgiving it would be a delight once again to pull out the Christmas books and read them anew.  My children have all those books safe and sound so they can take them to their own homes once they have finished college and start their own families.
  I am richly blessed with those memories. Thanksgiving is such a wonderful time of year for families to celebrate with the ones that love them and to count all the blesses we now call memories. Thanksgiving is a time to draw near and pause to give a prayer of Thanksgiving to the Holy one who has so lavished us with his blessings daily. Hug them, hold them, pray for them. Blessings to each of you!