The Silly
Thanksgiving cartoon found in Archives: Ruth Longenecker Diary 1945
Detail, enlarged
The Secular
The Sacred
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. ~ Psalm 100:3 KJV
As you approach Thanksgiving 2020, what are you most thankful for?
How do you plan to celebrate the holiday? (Canadians and others may have already observed a day of gratitude.)
Good morning, Marian! Happy Day Before Thanksgiving!
It will just be me and my husband this year–with a food exchange and outdoor visit with younger daughter if the weather cooperates. We are not doing indoor gatherings with anyone. I’m talking to sisters today on the phone and perhaps a Zoom family visit tomorrow and Friday night. I’m still making enough food for a crowd, 😀 including cranberry sauce, but I’ll miss our squirrel this year. Ours is definitely secular, and I’ll miss the family silliness.
You’re being safe, and so are we, in my opinion the wise and sensible thing to do this season.
I shopped for a smaller turkey this week and found one eleven pounds instead of the usual 22-pounder. I saw your squirrel mold on Facebook this week . . . next year . . . right?
The weather is mild here in Florida, so it won’t feel like a hardship to eat outdoors. Still, I’ll miss the nieces and nephews we usually see only once or twice a year. I smiled when I read that you’re still making enough food for a crowd. 😀
😀
Good Morning, Marian, I’m grateful for faith, family and friends and the gift of life that allows me to enjoy these blessings. It will be a different Thanksgiving this year—dinner here with just Wayne and I and a Zoom session with our kids. We don’t go anywhere (except to the grocery store and Dr appts). Wishing you , Cliff and your crew many Thanksgiving blessings.
You made it through a difficult year, Kathy, and you’re still smiling – and grateful! Thanks for replying here and spreading cheer on Twitter too. Enjoy Thanksgiving with Wayne. Soon a vaccine will make gatherings much more safe. Maybe we can start hugging our friends and family again. Thank you for all of this! ((( )))
Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, Marian! 😀 And how wonderful that you have so many souvenirs from your family’s past.
I was invited to the home of some friends for Thanksgiving. I won’t see family this Thanksgiving. But these friends are like family. I’m grateful to God for them and for my apartment, which still feels new after almost four months. 😀
You have done a wonderful job of enumerating your blessings this year on your blog, not the least of which is your new apartment. I’m glad you can share Thanksgiving with close friends. Happy Thanksgiving to you, L. Marie! 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Although we can’t get together for these special occasions, we can still be thankful. xo
That’s true, Darlene! As you look back over a productive year, you can count your blessings, as can I. Thanks for checking in today. 🙂
Marian — Like many of your readers, this we aren’t doing indoor gatherings with anyone either. It’ll just be Len and I, his wonderful cooking, and we plan to finish listening to the audiobook version of David Baldacci’s “Daylight” — book three in his Atlee Pine series. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
You have an in-house chef and a plan for entertainment too, what a blessing.
Cliff “reads” audio books exclusively and has listened to several David Baldacci books, but not “Daylight,” he says. I wonder if your enjoyment of thrillers has inspired your own interest in creating them, a series even. You are such an inspiration for writers like me. Thank you! 🙂
Good morning Marian, I recently purchased your book and find it fascinating as it includes some people and places I know/ knew.I am only half way through the book at this time. You have an amazing memory and and great vocabulary (of course, you were an English teacher).
I will have a quieter thanksgiving, just my housemate and myself. Will buy our to-go meal at a local restaurant. Today I will make cranberry applesauce, a must for any Thanksgiving meal.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.
Thank you for responding here and for purchasing/reading my book, Mary Ellen. Apparently, we have a similar Mennonite heritage and if your Facebook profile is accurate, you live in the Manheim/East Petersburg area. On the Metzler side of my family, I have a cousin Gerry who live in that area as well.
I love cranberry sauce too. This year I bought a package of raw cranberries, cooked them in a small amount of water and then added a can of jellied cranberry, something I’ve never done before. I had to add just a little bit of sugar and it jelled and tastes fine. If you are reading this now, you’ll find a comment by a long-time friend, Melodie Miller Davis, just below.
In this time of disruption and isolation, it’s great to make a new friend, who can picture the scenes and the setting of days gone by in Pennsylvania. Again, thank you for tuning in today – and have a happy Thanksgiving, Mary Ellen! 🙂
Oh how appropriate that I get to comment right after Mary Ellen Witmer making her debut here on your blog. We lived together in an apartment in Harrisonburg the year before I married Stuart. We had a great year, and would have been happy to be roommates longer if Stuart hadn’t come along! I’m glad Mary Ellen is reading your book, you do have much in common. She also lived in the deep south for a number of years, in Alabama.
Our celebration is focused on the sacred but enjoy the silly and the secular. (Love your photo of the child with hands folded. 🙂 ) We plan to split into 3 smaller groupings for our Thanksgiving this year: one daughter and her family here; another daughter and her family with her mother-in-law–a widow–; and one daughter with her mother-in-law-to-be (and with her fiance.) Yes, fiance. I’m still marrying off my daughters. Ha! We are beyond thrilled and he will be a wonderful addition to the family. Truly thankful for all this and more. Blessings to you and Cliff and franchof. (That’s a word, isn’t it? At least my mother used it.)
Melodie, your family will be enjoying the holiday safely and happily, splitting into smaller groups, a sensible move, I think.
Thank you for introducing me to Mary Ellen. Now we are Facebook friends, and I think she may know one or more of my cousins in PA. I used the German word for family you are referring to in my memoir, I think. I never remember how to spell it, so I usually go to poet Julie Kasdorf’s collection to check the spelling, which she spells “freindschaft” in one of her poems.
Congratulations on the engagement of your daughter. How wonderful that she found a mate you are happy with. And, Happy Thanksgiving to all the Davis’ family this season. 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving Marian! We are so blessed! Our family celebrated in October, but tomorrow we will be having a birthday celebration for Little Guy (who now towers over me)! I’m very thankful for my boys. From their very beginning, they have been a big part of my journey in faith. I suppose every Mom can say that – they test our faith, our patience and our love, but so worth it! xoxo
Thank you for the good wishes, Jenn. Yes, I do know Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in October, which seems so sensible. In the States Thanksgiving and Christmas are only a month apart. Oh, well.
I’m happy you are pleased with your Big and Little Guys, and can celebrate a birthday this season. I saw amen to your words: “They test our faith, our patience and our love, but so worth it!” 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving, Marian ..we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving but every day I give thanks for the continuing safety of family and friends who are not so lucky as we are to live in relative safety from Covid…Be well and safe 🙂
When I read your posts, I can picture you in the Land of Smiles, Thailand, and I sense gratitude when you post recipes and lively photos and videos. Thanks for commenting here today, Carol!
Always a pleasurable read, Marian.. Be safe and well 😊x
😀
Thank you for your post it made me laugh out loud! Our Thanksgiving this year will look a lot different. It will just be our immediate family. However, we are grateful that my husband is not deployed as he usually is during Thanksgiving. We are grateful to be lovers of Jesus, healthy, and hopeful!
I’m glad you have your husband at home, and not deployed, a special blessing. And I’m glad to have made a new friend, YOU, since the last Thanksgiving season. Yes, indeed, praise God from whom all blessings flow! 🙂
By the way what are your plans Marian?
Staying at home, cooking a small turkey, and thanking God that so far we have remained well and safe. I wish the same for you and your family. Oh, I’ll be baking an eleven-pound turkey instead of one double in size. Still, we’ll probably have leftovers. Thank you, my friend Katherine! 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving, dear Marian. Thank you for the smiles.
Yesterday I wrote a list the things I am most thankful for. Top of the list: Father God, from whom all blessings flow. Second: my BFH — Best Friend Husband. (And no, that’s not my best friend’s husband, like someone mistakenly believed, lol.)
Laughter! That needs to go on my gratitude list, too. And gratitude for super blogger writer friends like you. ❤❤
I sense joy and contentment in your comment. When I see your photo and comment I sometimes feel guilty that I don’t show up on your blog oftener. Apparently, you don’t hold that against me though. Ha!
Having a husband who is your best friend is a rare blessing. Yes, thanks too for tapping out the opening words to the Doxology. This has become our grace when we gather around the table as an extended family. Perhaps we will sing it as a twosome tomorrow, my husband an I. Thanks for your encouragement, Linda Lee! 🙂
I am grateful for each day, and grateful for my husband. We will have dinner-for-two, cooking a small turkey. As my dietary choices continue to narrow down, it will be many leftovers for him, which is fine. This year has been a real roller coaster.
You have that right, Ginger: This year has been a real roller-coaster. I’m glad you have planned an intimate Thanksgiving, dinner for two. I haven’t thought about it that way, but I guess we are doing the same. I’m glad you hold onto gratitude during this difficult time, my friend. Thank you! 🙂
Thanks for asking so I remember to ask myself. I’m grateful no one in my family is sick and I spent 10 minutes on the back porch (it’s cold here!), masked, talking to my son and his girlfriend. I’m grateful there is an end in sight (vaccines and political change) and meanwhile I have plenty of food for a non-turkey feast and sacred remembrance for a friend (self-isolates and just had a covid test because she had a cold) and me. I’m grateful I can stay at home and be safe and warm. I’m grateful to have you as a friend–a truly distanced relationship.
I love the observation, “a truly distanced relationship.” Yes, we are social, yet distanced, yett just now you seem closer than some of my friends I’m used to seeing face to face.
Yes, I will count my blessings just as you have. safe, secure, and hopeful.
Blessings during this holiday season: May gratitude for abundance abound, my friend! 🙂
Marian, today I am most thankful that we found the solution to a problem Hardy has had since Sunday, with vomiting. Finally took him to emergency (reluctantly because of Covid) and he had a bowel obstruction which turned out to be a hernia, so nothing serious, but required surgery and hospitalization for a day or two. Please pray that he returns his hale and hearty self. I miss him already! Too quiet in the house!
Just now I am saying a prayer for Hardy’s full recovery. And then, safe return home. You two are as one, so I can understand how you can feel out of balance without your true love. I’m glad he doesn’t have Covid, which can be deadly to the elderly as we are.
This past year Cliff and I have discussed “What ifs” about our health, something we haven’t done often, if ever. The pandemic has presented us with sobering thoughts. However, we do have hope, the blessed hope of eternal life. Praise the Lord!
I will continue to pray for you and Hardy! ((( )))
A blessed Thanksgiving to you and family Marian! I guess there’s much to be thankful for, the new administration seems to be underway, vaccines may be sooner rather than later, we have friends, roofs over our head, food to eat ..
We’re about to set off up to the highveld, 1300 kms or so away, where we have things to attend to – our townhouse was recently vacated and we need to see what to do with it from here on. I’ll be seeing a few friends, a few medical check ups (nothing serious) and it’s always lovely to be up there, and then to return mid-December.
On I go with packing … and checking things off the list.
I’m happy to hear your progress, taking care of “household” items, seeing friends, and keeping healthy with checkups as I have done too his past week or so.
Thanks for the good wishes all around. I’m glad I have a gratitude book to record all my blessings. I’m a list-checker too, Susan! 🙂
Have a blessed and beautiful Thanksgiving, Marian! 💕
And to you and your family as well.
I’m thankful for our friendship here and other venues, Bette. Take care! 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving Marian. I hope you’ve found a creative way to celebrate and stay safe. <3
Just the two of us in the dining room this year. We could have probably taken the feast outside but we agreed (reluctantly) to wait for a better time for the ten of us to gather. Eleven-pound bird instead of the usual 20+ size. Still, we have a lot to be thankful for, including leftovers. 🙂
You may have celebrated the Canadian Thanksgiving in October. Yes?
Stay safe and healthy, Debby! 🙂
Thank you for the smiles today! And Happy Thanksgiving from Canada! Yes, we celebrated in October.
Lynn, thank you for joining in the conversation on Thanksgiving Day in the States. I appreciate your sharing good wishes for continued gratitude, Lynn. 🙂
May we all enjoy the silly, the secular, and the sacred. My guy and I are alone with our 14 pound turkey (by the time we looked, we couldn’t get a smaller one!) We’d hope to share apps or dessert with our daughter and her family on their porch but it’s rainy and cold, so not today. The sacred is being together with my guy and giving thanks for family and love and friends. The silly – ummm, maybe I’ll go for a walk in the rain soon? 🙂 Happy Thanksgiving!!
You have covered all the bases as best you can: silly, secular, and sacred. I know the feeling of being betwixt and between – ah!
We are a twosome as well with a 13-pounder. I thought I had picked up an 11-pound turkey, but no. The good thing: Lost of leftovers and some to share.
Happy Thanksgiving 2020 – and gatherings in 2021, looking forward with HOPE to a vaccine and the end to restrictions and suffering. Blessings to you and your guy, Pam! 🙂
You and I share so much in silly, secular, and sacred, Marian. That in and of itself is sacred to me. <3
Absolutely, dear Pam!
<3
I hope you enjoyed a silly, secular and sacred day yesterday. It was an ordinary day for me here in Canada, but I spent part of it visiting with my mother in a retirement home, so that was Thanksgiving too.
You will never regret time spent visiting with your mother. Those moments are precious as I’m sure you know. We had a quiet day, busy in the kitchen wrestling a 13-pound turkey and all the fixings. Instead of a crowd of about a dozen, we were a two-some. Not because it’s our preference; it’s just safer that way.
Thank you, Arlene!
Blessings to you for thinking long term. Keeping family safe so there are more happy Thanksgivings in future.
I hope you had a great day. We were here alone with one friend and with temps in the low 70s we spent most of time outside! It was wonderful!
November is one of our mildest months, so we can spend time outdoors too. Son Joel visited on the patio, sharing a pie. Earlier, our Thanksgiving was a twosome with a traditional turkey. We’d rather be safe than sorry.
Even as we count our blessings, we hope next year this holiday will feel more normal. Thanks for the good wishes, Joan, and I’m glad you could spend some time outside also. 🙂
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, Marian! Mark, Maya, and I spent this day (and the following ones) in the desert of Arizona with two other nomadic couples. We made and shared scrumptious dishes, despite none of us having an oven. I’ll post photos in my next expense blog, probably. 🙂
There is a lot to be thankful for. Family, food, and health are my top choices this year.
Happy Birthday too, Liesbet! I just posted a birthday wish on your FB page. Also, just this morning, PLUNGE appeared in my Kindle library. How neat is that!
You have a lot to celebrate. Do pause and enjoy the moments . . . after ALL. . . THAT . . . HARD. . . WORK! 🙂
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, Marian. That poor turkey in the cartoon. I prefer to buy mine from a store and not think to much about where it came from [smile].
Ha Ha! I definitely agree, Robbie. In the USA the President typically “pardons” one turkey before Thanksgiving, a rather ridiculous ritual, but certainly a light-hearted gesture during these tense times.
Yes, we were a two-some for Thanksgiving this year. Although our son came with a pie presented on the patio, we were alone. at the table. I’m thinking of making a stew to share. 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving, Marian. ❤
Very much appreciated, Fatima. We had a time to thanksgiving, but it felt rather lonely.
By the way, I love your new bookshelves – so creative! 🙂
Hi, Marian … so lovely to meet you today! You’ve made me smile on this early, rainy, morn. And cause me to reflect on how sweet Thanksgiving was even though it was oh so different that last year’s massive gathering.
Linda, welcome! You may find this hard to believe, but I just “met” you on Linda Hoye’s latest post where you left a comment. I think we both like Linda’s daily contemplative reflections, sincere and simple. Thank you for joining in the conversation here. Do visit again. 🙂