How to Celebrate...November!
How to Celebrate … November!
“You have crowned the year with Your bounty, and Your paths drip with fatness.The pastures of the wilderness drip, and the hills gird themselves with rejoicing.The meadows are clothed with flocks and the valleys are covered with grain;They shout for joy, yes, they sing!”
— Psalm 65:11-13
Gratitude is not an emotion. It is a choice.
Thanksgiving is not a holiday; it is a willful determination to count your blessings in spite of disappointment, discouragement and grief.
Choosing to be utterly grateful and sincerely appreciative should consume more of our lives than a single, annual holiday is able to facilitate.
I believe that the call of Thanksgiving is an invitation that deserves a response more than just once a year.
“I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving. ”
In the morning when you rise, perhaps the first words that you speak should be, “For this … I am grateful.”
The intentional choice to live a life of perpetual thanksgiving should indeed dominate every waking moment of our lives on every day of every year.
Thanksgiving isn’t just a day … but it is a way to live our lives every day.
I believe that being grateful for the life that we have been given should be our first thought in the morning when we awake from our sleeping stupor and our last thought at night when we finally lay our head upon our pillow.
Counting our blessings should fill every minute of every hour.
Can you declare with me today, “For this … I am grateful”?!
“Gratitude can transform common days into Thanksgiving Day.”
Our “Gratitude Lists” should be enormous and never ending. When one notebook is filled with the blessings of our lives … then we should start another one … and another one … and another one.
When you embrace a lifestyle of thanksgiving you will find that it is more fulfilling and infinitely more delicious than a gourmet meal!
When you sing with deep gratitude a song of thanksgiving 365 days a year you will discover that it is more celebratory than a parade marked with colorful balloons and loud marching bands!
The triumph that a persistent thanksgiving ushers in to one’s life is more victorious than a championship football game!
“For all of this … I am grateful!”
Thanksgiving is a calling … it is a determination … it is life at its finest.
I am “all in” to creating a lifestyle of Thanksgiving … are you?
I don’t know what pain or challenge has marked the days of your calendar in 2020, but let me assure you that each one of us can dig deeply down into the experiences of this year and loudly proclaim, “For this … I am grateful!”
Some of the days of 2020 may have enriched your life with joy … while other days of this momentous year may have delivered discouragement … however my prayer for you is that your ability to give thanks and to celebrate your many blessings has roared over the circumstances of your life.
There is always something to be grateful for!
“For 2020 … I am grateful!”
“Thanksgiving” has always been a lifestyle for our family and not just a highly anticipated holiday. However, we have always tried to be especially mindful during the month of November of all that we have been undeservedly given.
When the children were young, on November 1, I always printed out the trunk and branches of a tree for each one of the children; every day of the month each child would add another “leaf” with what they were thankful for printed in their precious childish handwriting on that leaf.
As they grew, we always hung a garland across the mantle that was waiting for our family leaves of blessing. Every November evening at the dinner table, I would place a leaf made of various colors of construction paper by each person’s place. Each family member was expected to write a blessing on the leaf and then explain why they were grateful for this particular blessing; the leaf was then attached to the garland on the mantle.
“I will bless the Lord at all times,
His praise shall continually be in my mouth. ”
On Thanksgiving Day, when the children came downstairs, each was given a specific assignment or two in preparation for Thanksgiving Dinner. The Christmas parades were always the background of our November morning but everyone was expected to pitch in and help. Some children place cards for the table while others set the table with the fine china and linen napkins. I set bowls on the kitchen counter with a recipe card in each one; whichever bowl you chose was the recipe you were expected to make for Thanksgiving dinner.
When it was time to serve dinner, I always started to cry because I was so grateful for the life that I had been given. Mama’s tears are notoriously a part of our Thanksgiving traditions! We then went around the table, from youngest to oldest, to give thanks for our blessings that year.
The day was complete when the pie was reduced to mere crumbs, the family games were brought out and the family gathered around the piano to sing the Carols of Christmas.
“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it
is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”
On the day before Thanksgiving, the entire McLeod family annually traipsed up a small mountain and into the woods in order to select the perfect Christmas tree. Choosing a Christmas tree in the wonder of creation and then cutting it down just may be the highlight of the year for your family! On the day after Thanksgiving, when everyone is still drunk on food, is the time that we set aside for decorating the tree. As the tree came to life in the middle of our family room windows, we always watched the Christmas classic, “White Christmas”. It is, after all, the best Christmas movie of all time!
I am not an expert at many things however I can cook a fabulous Thanksgiving feast! I thought that I would share with you a few of our favorite and delicious recipes.
Carol’s Famous Corn Pudding Recipe
I bag of frozen corn
I can of creamed corn
I cup of milk
2 eggs - beaten
2 Tablespoons of flour
Pinch of Salt
3 Tablespoons of sugar
3 Tablespoons of butter
Mix the milk and flour together with a fork until the flour is well-blended. Then add the eggs that are already beaten well. Fold in the frozen corn and then the creamed corn. Add the sugar and the salt. Pour into a well-greased casserole dish and then dot the top with pats of butter. Bake at 350 for about one hour stirring it from the sides every 15 minutes. Your family will thank you!
“What if today we were thankful for just everything?”
Gramma Blew’s Cranberry Relish
1 bag of cranberries
1 orange
½ cup of orange juice
1 large box of orange-flavored gelatin dessert
1 ½ cups of boiling water
1 cup of sugar
Grind the cranberries well in a food processor or blender. Leave the skin on the orange, cut it into chunks and place it in the blender with the cranberries. Add the ½ cup of orange juice to the cranberry and orange mixture so that it isn’t too thick.
Mix the gelatin, boiling water and sugar together until the gelatin and sugar are thoroughly dissolved. Gently fold in the cranberry and orange mixture. Stir together until well mixed. Put it in a pretty serving dish and place it in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours before serving. A true taste of Thanksgiving memories!
“It was November ~ the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines.”
Pretzel-Topped Sweet Potatoes
2 cups chopped pretzel rods
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup fresh cranberries
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter, melted, divided
1 can (2.5 pounds) sweet potatoes, drained
1 can (5 ounces) evaporated milk
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
In a large bowl, combine the pretzels, pecans, cranberries, brown sugar and ½ cup butter; set aside.
In another large bowl, beat the sweet potatoes until smooth. Add the milk, sugar, vanilla and remaining butter; beat until well blended.
Spoon the sweet potato mixture into a shallow 2-qt baking dish; sprinkle with pretzel mixture. Bake, uncovered, at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until the edges are bubbly. You won’t know how you lived without this Thanksgiving treat!
“It looked like the world was covered
in a cobbler crust of brown sugar and cinnamon.”
The hymns of thanksgiving are a rare and often times overlooked treasure of the season of dying leaves, gusty winds and family gatherings. I hope that you will take some time this year to sing the songs of thanksgiving with the saints of the ages who have gone before us.
One of my favorite Thanksgiving hymns has always been, “We Gather Together”. Although this powerful song is traditionally sung only at Thanksgiving time, it was actually not composed by the Pilgrims nor was it written specifically for our symbolic American holiday.
This beloved hymn of the church was written in 1597 when the Dutch were engaged in a war of national liberation against the King and forces of Spain. The phrase “We Gather Together” resonated deeply within the hearts of the Dutch citizens because under the Spanish king, Dutch Protestants were not allowed to gather to worship.
In order to help Holland acknowledge their turbulent past yet look ahead to a promising future the words of this triumphant hymn were penned by a young tax collector, Adrianus Valerius.
We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing,
Sing praises to His Name, He forgets not his own.
Beside us to guide us our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His Kingdom divine.
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, was at our side, all glory be Thine!
We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,
And pray that Thou still our defender will be.
Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy Name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!
What have you gone through this year? Has your life been devastated by disappointment and by losses?
Have your joy and hope been taken captive this year?
I have found that when in a battle, it is the most appropriate time to sing and to sing loudly! Battles do not have the power to diminish the human song of thanksgiving! Battles should always fan the flames of honest gratitude and cause the melody triumphant to burst forth in spite of tragedy.
I pray that you will discover with the pilgrims of old … with Adrianus Valerius … and with me, “So from the beginning the fight we were winning, Thou, Lord, was at our side, all glory be Thine!”