Thankful: for Family, Trees, and Friends

In the middle of handing out mini-Snickers and Reeses Cups this Halloween, I was busy snipping pieces of kraft paper into a vague sort of tree outline:

It's our Thankful Tree.  I ran across the idea somewhere in the blogosphere last year, and it was a big hit here in the Yellow House.  The concept is simple:  each night, we go around the table and each family member names one thing they're thankful for.  If certain 2nd graders insist, they are given rights to the coveted brown Sharpie marker to write their own leaf.

The 2010 tree was extremely prolific:  as the leaves tumbled off the oaks, maples and poplars in our backyard, the paper leaves grew and grew on the Thankful Tree.  Some of my happiest moments this month have been craning my neck to check out all the funny little things my kids are grateful for.  Except, not so funny:  many of the adults' and kids' leaves turn up with some version of  'grandparents' or 'my friends.'



Ahh, friends.   Today on Classic Play I am guest posting all about a Friends Thanksgiving - the meaning of a holiday spent with The Other Kind of Family.   Let us never forget the gift of our families, crazy as they might be, but also?  Keep those friendships on your Thankful Tree.  There's nothing like 'em.

Back to school

Pop Quiz:  who can read the syllabus listed below?  (Extra credit if you know what 'TWW' is code for) Answers below.

(oh, and you elementary ed folks can just keep quiet until everyone gets a chance to guess)

Interpreting first-grade phonetic spelling requires a massive leap in imagination, and is not for the faint of heart.  (She got Grandma to write the first lines, but 'metacognition' is straight from the first grade classroom.  These are NOT your mother's elementary years.)

We spent Thanksgiving weekend in my grandparents's one-room schoolhouse, renovated long ago to use for weekends in the country.

Needless to say, the original blackboard seriously captured the imagination of my little schoolgirl, and she happily spent hours and hours schooling her cousin and brother. This was the syllabus on the last day.

Oh, and here are the answers:

READING
1) Today We Will use metacognition to summarize our Weekly Readers [promise, she dictated this to Grandma]
2) MATH: TWW [use] easy ways to count on
3) SCIENCE:  TWW make our models
4) WRITING:  TWW use crayons or markers to underline the important words

The thing about this girls is, you are never. EVER. bored.  Driven to distraction, yes.  Bored, no.

Tree O' Thanks

What family doesn't wish their children were more grateful for all that they have, for all they've been given?  What adult doesn't spend at least part of Thanksgiving Day reflecting on their blessings, and resolving to be more thankful in the coming year?

We started a new tradition this year: a thankfulness tree.  I'd read about it last year - too late to do it - and resolved that, just as we spend a month preparing for Christmas, I wanted to spend a month preparing for the feast of Thanksgiving, and all the gratefulness that this holiday [ideally] entails.

The tree was cut freehand out of kraft paper, and slapped up on the wall of a Sunday afternoon.  I let the kids cut out the leaf shapes, and each night after dinner we've spent a minute or two trying to figure out what we're grateful for that day.

My favorites?

Annika: "Thankful for 'nack'!" (Snack)
Lars:  "Thankful for Daddy playing with me on the floor"
Cecilie:  "Thangful fr Granmo" [we've been letting her write her own]
Mommy:  "Thankful for red wine and faraway friends"
Daddy:  "Thankful for Friday"

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Most of all, this year, I am thankful for the wisdom to be thankful. That itself was the gift of 2009.

Thanksgiving?

Yes we know, we're running behind, but this bird is here to serve as a segue to christmas, because as soon as the dishes are done it is time...

... to get the manger scene out as daintily as possibly...

...and find that perfect tree

Thanksgiving day

I'm gonna eat on thanksgiving day, turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce...

...and before you can count to 1-2-3 I'm up for the pumpkin pie!

The sweetest little cousin

A model child

The meaning of Thanksgiving...

Thanksgiving came and went without any peas...

What I am most thankful for is my wonderful family and the fact that thanksgiving seems to be severely under-commercialised (being wedged between Halloween and xmas and all), and all about eating!

Turkey is all good, but this year it was about the stuffing: most marvelous with two types of sausage and pine nuts, and the gravy: seriously divine. Have I ever mentioned I am a fan of my wife's cooking?

To me thanksgiving will forever be an ex-pat activity (or at least for now, maybe my own house will change it...) I have such awesome memories from England where the booze cruise loot was broken open and Kirsten one year went the full Monty and rubbed the turkey with ricotta and parmesagne -UNDER THE SKIN, before roasting and getting totally blasted with a crew of likeminded gourmands.

Two things are for sure even here in America: Thanksgiving to me is opening the first Port Bottle of the season (I almost cracked open the '94 Brad gave me -then I came to my senses) and getting my neck around the just arrived Beaujolais Nouveau, which this season seems quite "dry". Doesn't make for the easisest drinking tipple, but MAN it bodes well for the vintage frolm the villages!

As an aside, Lars decided (as far as a child can make such a decision) to go sick for the big day; which means he's been in this phlegmatic (read: drugged out) state the whole day, and mostly only wanting to veg out on our laps, poor boy.