Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Thanksgiving Traditions





I still can’t believe next week is Thanksgiving. It just seems like yesterday it was hot out…oh wait, I live in Texas, so yesterday it was hot!

But seriously, this is one of my favorite times of the year. In my opinion, Thanksgiving is one of our unsung holidays because it doesn’t always get its due. I mean look what comes next.
Thanksgiving is the time where we give thanks to God for all the gifts he has blessed us with before we celebrate receiving of the greatest gift of all. The birth of our Lord Jesus.

So, as I sat down to write this, I thought about all the Thanksgivings that have passed in my life. At 57, there’s been quite a few that come to mind.

As a child, I remember all the family coming together over a wonderful meal cooked by my mother. Turkey and cornbread dressing, pies, and one of my favorites, my mother’s fruit salad. Of all the things that made the Thanksgiving meal so good, it was her fruit salad that I loved the most. It’s stuck with me through the years.
By then, the weather had usually turned colder, though we lived in a different part of Texas. I remember one year it even snowed. All special memories for a child.

One of our other traditions was to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. The floats and the balloons were great, but when Santa made an appearance we knew Christmas was on its way.


Most of my family have now gone on to be with God, so nowadays, Thanksgiving is bittersweet for me.

As a grandmother, we have our own holiday traditions, but I do my best to make all those wonderful dishes my mother made so well and that I loved as a child, (even the fruit salad). And on occasion we watch the parade still.    

So what about you? What are your family’s Thanksgiving traditions? Do you have some that you learned from your childhood and that you carry on to your children?  

 

All the best…

 

Mary Alford

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Finally, Fall has arrived by Leann Harris

Cool weather is here. Yeah. Last week folks were in shorts, sandals, and t-shirts. This morning we had rain and cold. But now I have to switch out my closets from summer to winter. Don't tell me I'm the only one who has taken over their children's closets (once they left). Okay, I need to be brutal and go through those closets and throw out things I haven't worn in the last three years, but in my defense, I wore a dress this summer I haven't worn in more than ten years. There's also another wrinkle in this plan to clean closets. I have a proposal to finish. What is more important to a writer, clothes or writing? Need I say more.
I wanted to share pictures of my yard at this time and table, but I'm not brave enough to take a picture of those closets and post it. There are some things a girl doesn't do.