Thanksgiving review

Our traditional Thanksgiving always starts with Gwen and Tim and the kids coming to my house on Thanksgiving day.  We watch the parade (sometimes more than one time since it is on repeat) and then always watch the dog show that follows that.  The last few years Gwen and I, along with Lia have gone to Meijer, which is the only store that is open on Thanksgiving.  They have frequently had really good sales that Gwen waits for every year on winter boots for the kids.  This year was no exception!  We never have turkey or a big dinner, but always have Lasagna that I have prepared the day before.  The kids (and dogs) love this time at Grandma's house and we have a "sleepover" so that Gwen and I can "Black Friday" shop in the early hours of the morning.  

This year we noticed that Black Friday may be coming to an end.  There were really no crowds at most of our typical shopping places.  Tim came with us for the first round and we were actually back at the house by 7:00am.  We left Tim, who had another store to visit with Zeke, and picked up Lia.  We ventured to the nearby Outlet Mall.  Lia had some very specific things she was looking for to finish out her shopping for the kids at Good Samaritan Ministries.  Lia works at their after school program for the kids who mostly come from poor households.  She was determined to help these kids have a good Christmas and through her efforts (and so many generous friends and family) she succeeded.  All in all, we had a short, but good shopping time.  We did decide NOT to go the Nike store, which had a long line OUTSIDE of the store and very long lines inside to check out.  No good deal is worth that kind of time. 

After all of our Black Friday things are wrapped up, we go to Doug and Susie's for our "real" Thanksgiving.  Doug usually smokes a turkey and this year was no different.

We always take lots of family pictures and the kids have so much fun together.  This year Jimmy found a way to get Zeke to play all of his fun imagination games that include rockets and transformers.

And there were also several rounds of  "Taco, Cat, Goat, Cheese, Pizza" .  If you don't know what that is, trust me, its a new, fast paced card game that the kids just love!

We had a wonderful dinner with everyone fitting around the table.  Grace made place cards and decided where everyone should sit. 

I think that the kids were most thankful about the desert we picked this year!  Since only a few of the adults like pie and none of the kids will eat pie, we decided to have Ice Cream in Waffle bowls with all the toppings.  It was a big hit for sure!  

Here are a couple of the posed family photos from our yearly Thanksgiving.  

Our thanks on Thanksgiving are wide and deep.  All of us are thankful for this family. We are thankful for good health, that we live close enough to be together.  We are thankful for good jobs and good friends.  I can't help but come away from every event like this feeling so blessed. 

And here it is almost Christmas.  I can't wait for a repeat of this time together.  Hopefully I will blog about our Christmas much quicker than happened for Thanksgiving.  One thing is certain.  I will be just as thankful at Christmas for my family as I was at Thanksgiving!

Jesus, thank you for family and times to step back and remember just how blessed we are.  Holy  Spirit, comfort those who don't have family or friends to be with during these seasons.  Give wisdom to us all to see our friends or neighbors who might be spending the holidays along and give us creative ways to bless them.  Thank you for the good food and great fun.   Amen