Holidays and Events

Archive for the ‘Thanksgiving’ Category

by Lydia Maria Child (1844)

Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather’s house we go;
the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather’s house away!
We would not stop for doll or top,
for ’tis Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood—
oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes and bites the nose,
as over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood.
with a clear blue winter sky,
The dogs do bark and the children hark,
as we go jingling by.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to have a first-rate play.
Hear the bells ring, “Ting a ling ding!”
Hurray for Thanskgiving Day!

Over the river, and through the wood—
no matter for winds that blow;
Or if we get the sleigh upset
into a bank of snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to see little John and Ann;
We will kiss them all, and play snowball
and stay as long as we can.

Over the river, and through the wood,
trot fast my dapple gray!
Spring over the ground like a hunting-hound!
For ’tis Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood
and straight through the barnyard gate.
We seem to go extremely slow—
it is so hard to wait!

Over the river, and through the wood—
Old Jowler hears our bells;
He shakes his paw with a loud bow-wow,
and thus the news he tells.

Over the river, and through the wood—
when Grandmother sees us come,
She will say, “O, dear, the children are here,
bring pie for everyone.”

Over the river, and through the wood—
now Grandmother’s cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!

by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

The sun hath shed its kindly light,
Our harvesting is gladly o’er,
Our fields have felt no killing blight,
Our bins are filled with goodly store.

From pestilence, fire, ‘flood, and sword
We have been spared by thy decree,
And now with humble hearts, O Lord,
We come to pay our thanks to thee.

We feel that had our merits been
The measure of thy gifts to us,
We erring children, born of sin,
Might not now be rejoicing thus.

No deed of ours hath brought us grace;
When thou wert nigh our sight was dull,
We hid in trembling from thy face,
But thou, O God, wert merciful.

Thy mighty hand o’er all the land
Hath still been open to bestow
Those blessings which our wants demand
From heaven, whence all blessings flow.

Thou hast, with ever watchful eye,
Looked down on us with holy care,
And from thy storehouse in the sky
Hast scattered plenty everywhere.

Then lift we up our songs of praise
To thee, O Father, good and kind;
To thee we consecrate our days;
Be thine the temple of each mind.

With incense sweet our thanks ascend;
Before thy works our powers pall;
Though we should strive years without end,
We could not thank thee for them all.

If you’re hosting a family Thanksgiving, you  will want to create a fun environment that will help children understand the importance of thankfulness and send a gentle reminder to the adults of  this as well.

Since Thanksgiving comes just before what many refer to as the “greedy” season, activities designed to remind people of the bounty in their lives are useful. For example, you might help children understand that while they don’t have everything they want, they do have everything they need.

There are several ways to do this.

First, help the children create a cornucopia centerpiece, which will sit on the Thanksgiving table.  One way of doing this would be to make a papier-mâché cornucopia using a balloon as the base to help you get the shape started.  Alternately, you could simply take large piece of poster board and shape it into a cone and fill it with whatever you like. As an extra activity, the  children can decorate the cornucopia before it is filled.

Since the idea of the cornucopia is to celebrate a abundance and appreciate that bounty, you can fill it as is traditionally done with squash, corn and the like. You might ask each member of the family to bring something that represents their personal bounty in life.

A new mom might bring a baby blanket to put in the cornucopia while a newly retired grandpa might add a picture of his family, since that’s what’s most important to him. You can discuss the items in the cornucopia basket at the dinner table while enjoying your Thanksgiving feast.

Another family activity that kids like is the thankfulness jar. When each person arrives at dinner, they place a note with something they are thankful for in the jar. Ideally, each person will add more than one item to the jar.  At dinner, someone (ideally, the matriarch of patriarch of the family) reads the notes. Everyone tries to figure out who wrote which note.

The items can range from the serious (someone who struggled with an illness in the previous year might be thankful for life, quite simply) to the silly (the new mom might be thankful there’s a Starbucks within 5 minutes of her home). Kids enjoy adding their own touches to the thankfulness jar and their responses are often a surprise to the adult family members.

Some families have several tables set about at Thanksgiving. Many people buy professional floral arrangements to decorate the tables. You can make a game out of it to figure out who’s going to get to bring home the table arrangement to their home.

You can do the old wedding thing and simply put a number on the bottom of the centerpiece and have someone’s chair match that number or you can make a game and perhaps create a trivia game out of Thanksgiving facts. For example, questions might look like this:
*How many turkeys are cooked on Thanksgiving throughout the US?
*Why are turkeys called turkeys?
*Which president set aside the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving?

Be sure you research and know the answers and then quiz everyone. This is a great way to pass the time while everyone is waiting for the feast to be ready. Just tell the winners they can’t take the centerpieces until dinner is over!

A similar game can be played before dessert. Create a family trivia game and quiz family members before dessert. Only those guests who answer correctly  get to have their dessert. Everyone else has to keep trying until they get their trivia question correct.

Questions can range from the silly to the sublime. They might look something like this:
*Who got popcorn stuck in her braces at 12?
*Which man here wore boots with big holes in them until he was 20 and could buy his own?
*Whose grandparents immigrated to the US from Ireland?
*Which boy here got suspended from school for riding his bike into the classroom?

What did the mama turkey say to her naughty son?
If your papa could see you now, he’d turn over in his gravy!

Asked to write a composition entitled, “What I’m thankful for on Thanksgiving,” little Timothy wrote, “I am thankful that I’m not a turkey.”

Which side of the turkey has the most feathers?
The outside.

If April showers bring May flowers what do May flowers bring?
Pilgrims!

Why did the turkey cross the road?
It was the chicken’s day off.

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The pro football team had just finished their daily practice session when a large turkey came strutting onto the field. While the players gazed in amazement, the turkey walked up to the head coach and demanded a tryout.

Everyone stared in silence as the turkey caught pass after pass and ran right through the defensive line. When the turkey returned to the sidelines, the coach shouted, “You’re terrific!!! Sign up for the season, and I’ll see to it that you get a huge bonus.”

“Forget the bonus,” the turkey said, “All I want to know is, does the season go past Thanksgiving Day?”

Have you made the decision to host a Thanksgiving party this year?  If so, have you already started planning?  Regardless of whether or not you have started the planning, you are advised to start it early. Planning a party, even a Thanksgiving party, is a lot easier said than done. That is why it is important that you start planning for your party early, you will find that there are a number of benefits to doing so.

Before you can start to understand the benefits of planning for your party early, it is important to remember one thing, the definition of the word early.  When it comes to doing something early, we all have different views. One thing is for sure, early means different things to different individuals.  For this article, we are going to consider early about two or three weeks before your party.  Depending on your own personal preference, you may choose to plan your Thanksgiving party even earlier; it is completely up to you.

Perhaps, the greatest benefit of starting to plan your Thanksgiving party early is that you will have all of your bases covered. As previously mentioned, planning party isn’t always as easy as it may seem or sound. As much as we would like to purchase all of our needed supplies, problems arise.  Whether you are unable to find that you wanted or you didn’t purchase enough of what you needed, you don’t want to be left unprepared.  Preparing for your Thanksgiving party in advance will help to ensure that you have all of the supplies, including the decorations and food that you need to have.  If by some chance you didn’t get everything you needed, you should be able to notice before the day of your party arrives.

Whether you are planning on including a Thanksgiving dinner with your party or not, you will still need to get food and drinks.  Depending on the size of your Thanksgiving party, those food and drinks could get fairly expensive. That is why it may be a good idea to start buying these items ahead of time. Doing so, will not only enable you to get the supplies that you need, ahead of time, but it may also help you get your food and drinks at a more affordable price.  Whenever you happen to be in a store and you see something that you could use at your party, you are advised to get it, especially if that item is on sale.  Purchasing food and drinks for your party while they are on sale, is a great way to have an amazing, but low-cost party.

In addition to food and drinks, there is also a good chance that you would like to decorate for your Thanksgiving party.  Unfortunately, not all retail stores carry a large selection of Thanksgiving decorations.  Sometimes, it seems as if they skip Thanksgiving and jump right to Christmas. This does not mean that you cannot get the Thanksgiving decorations that you wanted to have, it just means that you should try and purchase them early. This will help to ensure that you get the decorations that you wanted to have.  This is extremely important because, in addition to carrying a limited number of decorations, most retail stores do not replenish their holiday items.  Essentially, this means that when the decorations are gone, they are gone.

Another one of the many reasons why you should start planning your Thanksgiving party early is because the sooner you start your planning, the sooner you can invite your party guests. Around the holidays, you will find that many people already have plans or something that they would like to do. This does not mean that you shouldn’t have a Thanksgiving party; it just means that you need to invite your guests before they make other plans.  You will want to invite your guests, at least, two weeks before your party, but it may be a good idea to send out invitations a month or so early.

There is a good chance that no matter what you do or when you start planning, your Thanksgiving party will be a success.  Despite being a success, you can benefit a number of different ways, by planning your Thanksgiving party early.