Thanksgiving

It's upon us! I LOVE Thanksgiving. I love having a day to focus on being Thankful. I really enjoy making dinner! Oh how I enjoy it! I love cooking the turkey, making homemade noodles, from scratch stuffing, broccoli casserole, homemade bread, Chad does the mashed potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce (Christmas I'm going to make from scratch cranberry sauce, I just got a recipe for it). I'll be making a Chocolate pie and a Double Layer Pie. My friend who's coming over is making the green bean casserole. We'll have appetizers of cheeses, crackers, fresh broccoli, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, dips, and chips. Nothing fancy, but will stave off the starving! We're having my friend over as I mentioned and her two little boys, her husband just recently deployed so I'm so thankful to bless them. We're having some single soldiers over as well. I'm making a huge turkey (20 lbs) and I plan to make up some plates for the soldiers who have to work Staff Duty.

We have a few games to play with adults and kids can join as well! Chad bought Apples to Apples tonight, which is one of my favorite games and can be played with a large or small group! We're going to buy the Junior version for the kids for Christmas!

I have to say that I feel so blessed to be living here in Germany, especially when it comes to Thanksgiving and Christmas. There's no extended family pulling us to come to be with them. My family lives in Kansas. Chad's family lives in Ohio. We've already discussed that when we retire (we'll retire in KS) we will have the meal at our home every other year and on the off year we'll take turns of going to ones family. On our years we'll of course invite our extended family to join us, but if they don't, they don't. I don't want my children's memories of us having to travel all over the place, but instead have memories of laughter and praising and celebrating GOD in our home. I feel that's so important.

I hope you each have a blessed Thanksgiving. That you can praise Jesus for him being your Savior (and I pray he's each of your Savior) that you can be thankful for where GOD's placed you. That you can thank GOD for being an American or living in the US and celebrating Thanksgiving. I wonder if the Pilgrims ever imagined this day of thankfulness and celebration would still be going on after so many years!