I couldn’t believe it when I realized that Thanksgiving is actually next week.  Time is moving fast.  So, I’m desperately trying to get inspired for this holiday even though I want to leap into sleds, Christmas music and Christmas cheer.  But having a family feast and acknowledging what we should be thankful for is so darn important.  I’m realizing that my own child really needs to see how hard life can be in this world, that not every child gets presents, and some can’t eat.

I’m trying to do this work with gifting for a little girl in a 3rd world country but it’s still so hard for little ones to grasp these concepts.  We are trying to learn to be kind but also to be grateful.  I asked her what she is thankful for and we wrote her responses on rocks to decorate the table with.  This was a very sweet way to encourage her to be aware of the wonderful aspects of her life.

And then there’s party prep:

Here are ideas I have for the table display.  I’ve always wanted to do a pumpkin floral arrangement.  We’ll see if I can pull this off.  It seems challenging to deal with wilting flower issues when you have a feast to create.  I would obviously have to arrange the flowers the day before.

I just love this one!

You get the idea.  These are very special but again I’m not sure I can handle these and all the food prep.

Today we went on our “adventure walk” and I have to say I was so proud of myself because I have essentially memorized my entire neighborhood by all of it’s wealth in natural materials.  I know where the best bark is, where the large acorns and acorn caps are, where the pink pepper berries are, and the pine cones…oh, and hawk feathers aplenty.  I even said “let’s go to the acorn section up by the pink house,” LOL…it was like going down aisle 5 at Michael’s.  I LOVE to look at nature this way.  And to think, “do we need to go spend money?” Especially when we have all of these wonderful real live materials surrounding us.  If we just took the time to find them!

Willow loves to collect everything.  She is starting to sound like me.  “I have work to do” she said firmly as she glued pine cones and shells to a board.  “I need more materials,” she demanded.  I actually am quite fond of her blossoming creativity and driven vision.  Watching your child become determined and precise is very sweet.

We started to prep our place cards with the materials we found.  I saw some branches too with that lovely dry moss all over it.  I may need to go back and grab it all and do a centerpiece with it!

This craft took over our whole day since Willow was home sick and all we could do was craft and keep to ourselves.  This was from a Rice crispy add and I just fell in love with this.  I also love doing this with pine cones.  We collected feathers and will paint them ourselves.  And painting pumpkins was a fun one and smothering them with confetti.

I had one of those overdrive days today.  One where you feel you over did it.  Sometimes being creative all day and having mess everywhere starts to suffocate me.  I get overwhelmed.  By 5pm I needed to switch gears and slow down.  All that creativity equals sweeping up confetti and washing paint off of walls and toes and getting pixy dust and weeds out of curly locks.  I recommend limiting craft projects to one per day with a start and finishing goal.

Let’s talk food:

I definitely want to do this.  Somehow regular salad just seems ho hum and salad in general doesn’t need to be on the table on Thanksgiving.  I want to eliminate the random dishes that nobody eats.  But this just has so much crunch and texture.  It will be a good contrast.  We are going to do grilled brussel sprouts, grapes, nuts, and sausage – this just sounds so yummy and smokey.

Cause gravy’s gotta be made from scratch and you can’t go without it.

And this cheesecake, um…just looks amazing!  We’ll have to have all the sweet potatoes and the mash potatoes and ginger cranberry sauce and apple pie.  The whole nine yards.  So cheers to coming together and taking the time to recognize our blessings, and to teach our little ones the meaning of appreciation for the wonderful life that we have been given.  And then right after Thanksgiving holiday we can put up our Christmas lights.  Happy happy joy joy!

Bon Appetit