Mentor Mom Moment with Kay Dooley

My Most Favorite Holiday

Mmmmmm…turkey, dressing, gravy, sweet potato soufflé, green bean casserole, pumpkin and pecan pies. Hopefully, these thoughts make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. I wish I could mention warm fires but we are in Florida! Can you believe Thanksgiving is almost here? Hopefully, we will soon be sitting around the table with the people we love celebrating a very important tradition - the tradition of thanking God for our lives and how he sustains us daily in every way. This may be the first year for many children to be of age to understand how the Pilgrims and Indians shared a meal on this day and why it is so important to us. Many schools don’t share this story anymore. The American Thanksgiving celebration took place in 1621 near the end of the Plymouth Colony’s first year in America. It was when the settlers gave thanks for a wonderful first harvest. The natives and pilgrims celebrated a peace treaty and enjoyed duck, deer, corn as well as many other wonderful foods. This year, make a point to find an age appropriate story or video on the meaning of Thanksgiving and make the time to share it together. It is much harder to explain to a child how to be thankful than it is to tell the story of the pilgrims. A couple of ways we can show them is by together buying groceries for a food bank or helping at a soup kitchen. One of the best ways we can do this is by our example. When children hear us say the blessing at mealtime or our prayers at night, they notice. We take so many things for granted during our day. We should make a habit of saying thank you, Jesus our Lord aloud ~ even for the little things. Their minds absorb so much more than we realize. I believe they will begin to understand that without Jesus we would not have anything. It will help us be reminded of how much we have to be thankful for.
I pray for each family to have a peaceful and safe Thanksgiving.

More Than A Day
As Thanksgiving Day rolls around,
It brings up some facts, quite profound.
We may think that we're poor,
Feel like bums, insecure,
But in truth, our riches astound.
We have friends and family we love;
We have guidance from heaven above.
We have so much more
Than they sell in a store,
We're wealthy, when push comes to shove.
So add up your blessings, I say;
Make Thanksgiving last more than a day.
Enjoy what you've got;
Realize it's a lot,
And you'll make all your cares go away.

By Karl Fuchs