Wednesday, November 22, 2023 Giving of Thanks

No, it’s not Turkey Day. I really must be firm on that issue. As Christians, of course, we don’t set aside just one day a year to thank God for our many blessings; we do it every day, sometimes every hour.

Now thank we all our God
With heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom his world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms,
Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today.

But it’s still a beautiful thing to have one day a year when our whole nation (supposedly) gives thanks to God, feasting on the visible fruits of His blessing, enjoying the fellowship of family and friends.

My family when I was growing up didn’t have many solid Thanksgiving traditions, other than cleaning the house to a fare-thee-well and having all the traditional victuals. Oh, and I remember every year we had to get the good silver out and get the tarnish off of it with some sort of paste. It was actually kind of satisfying work. We usually sang a Thanksgiving hymn as a form of grace.

Come, ye thankful people come,
Raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathering in,
Ere the winter storms begin;
God, our maker, doth provide
For our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come,
Raise the song of harvest home.

What were your traditions?

(I probably could have done a little bit of cropping on that photo before posting it – included the original in a letter I recently sent to someone.)

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends!

I’ll probably be too busying stuffing a turkey to delete this in the morning.