…I shall lift up the cup of salvation…. and offer a sacrifice of Thanksgiving. (Ps. 116)
I kept thinking about these verses all last week as we prepared for Thanksgiving. First, we had a church-wide Thanksgiving meal headed up by chefs and hostesses extraordinaire ~ Felicia and Zeena.
Surely more than 100 people stayed after the second service to eat turkey, ham, fresh and lightly sauteed green beans, salad, roasted butternut squash, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cornbread and lots of various pies. And just look at all of those smiles! It was such a delicious meal and fun time of fellowship with a church family who was also offering much thanksgiving to the Lord for His many benefits.
The following Monday was spent cleaning and shopping. Tuesday our whole family headed to an indoor water park for the day with lots of our Classical Conversations friends. And Wednesday was spent IN THE KITCHEN and nowhere else! Kayla and I made 5 pies, 1 flourless marble torte, and 1 batch of pumpkin cheesecakes. (ALL gluten free, of course!)
We also made a large pear and pomegranate salad (with goat cheese and sugar coated pecans!) and prepped some appetizers. The longhorn cutting board came out and was covered with cheeses and marcona almonds as well as a stainless longhorn-handled serving dish with crack-your-own-nuts. But none of these efforts at long distance support seemed to help the Longhorns pull off a win against the Aggies on Thanksgiving day.
The best part of Thanksgiving at our house is the guests. Living 2000 miles away from family means that we just stay put for the holidays and enjoy them with other folks who aren’t traveling to be with family either. This year some of our new guests included Greg and Jerry ~ two Amherst College students whose faith is such an example and inspiration. Also at the guys table were our “nearly yearly” guests ~ Martin, Mike, Tim and Kory and Cooper, of course.
Last year we added wonderful friends Brett and Jenna to our table, and this year we had the added blessing of Jenna’s parents from Minnesota, too. Jenna and her mom provided at least half of our meal with a second turkey, the mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, and green beans! Hauling it to our house was no easy feat, but they still did it with so much thoughtfulness and grace.
After the meal, there were Trivial Pursuit questions, Bananagrams, and football games on TV. Then a second round of food and dessert and clean-up time.
We were given a guest book as a wedding gift 18 years ago. After everyone left, we enjoyed going back through each Thanksgiving that we’ve hosted through the years and remembering all of the people we’ve been blessed to have around our table.
His benefits to us are amazing.