Thanksgiving 2018

I love Thanksgiving.  Really, I enjoy holidays in general.  But I love what this holiday is about; two of my favorite things - family and food.

I also love the cozy, warm colors associated with the holiday.  This year was our first Thanksgiving in Slovenia (last year we were in Hungary), and we were delighted to have our friends celebrate with us!  I wanted to make our home feel festive, but also wanted to stick with our more minimalistic/rustic feel.

For the centerpiece, I used pumpkins, lavender greens, cotton, walnuts, wheat and little dried pears (hruške - given as a gift by a little elderly lady at the market).

When we moved to Slovenia, I bought dishes from a Slovenian potter, named Jasmina Verbič.  I love them, because they are simple and beautiful.  They are easy to dress up or down.  I used my great-grandmother's silver.  When I opened the box they were in, it smelled like my Gran and Gramps' house.  They passed away two years ago, so having a little piece of them as a part of our celebration made it that much more special.

For the kids' table I made pilgrim hat crayon holders, and turkey snacks (a preschooler one with pop corn, and a toddler one with puffs).  The kids ended up at our table, lol, but it was actually really nice to have them so near us.

It was an overcast, kind of dreary day, so the light was darker than I would've liked, but it made for some dreamy low-light pictures.  So, here is our Thanksgiving celebration.

 

Happy Thanksgiving from our little turkeys!  We have so much to be thankful for!

PS:

I had some Thanksgiving books out for the kids, here are the titles for you:

1. The Thanksgiving Door by Debby Atwell (this one is my favorite!)

2. Thank You, Sarah by Laurie Halse Anderson (about the woman who petitioned for Thanksgiving to be a national holiday.)

3. P Is For Pilgrim by Carol Crane (a Thanksgiving alphabet book)

4. Pete The Cat Thanksgiving by James Dean

5. Thank you, God, For Daddy by Amy Parker 

Feeling Very Thankful

The week of Thanksgiving was a wonderful one.

A half week at school, two days off, good food, even a little Black Friday (online) shopping... like I said, wonderful.

I read my kids the Albuquerque Turkey, which if you haven't ever read it, I highly recommend it.  Very cute story.  It's actually a song, sung to "Oh My Darling Clementine".  I'm very visual, so for those of you out there who are too, here's the cover:

After we read this book, I had my students make their own "Albuquerque Turkey"s.  

What you'll need for this craft is 

2 large circles out of paper

1 smaller circle of paper

1 yellow triangle out of paper

1 orange teardrop shape out of paper

2 googley eyes

5-6 feathers

2 black or brown pipe cleaners

You glue the feather between the two large circles at the top, and the two pipe cleaners (bent into feet- I had to do most of them for my kids) at the bottom.  Then glue on the smaller circle, the eyes, the beak and waddle.  This is the most fun part, because sometimes they don't put them where you think they will.  This is just one of the many very cute turkey ideas out there.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving we watched The Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.  Here's a confession.  That was my first time ever seeing it.  Just one minor set-back of growing up over-seas.

After the movie we had a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving party!  Naturally, we had toast, jelly beans, pop corn and pretzels.

I also had each child draw a picture of something they are thankful for.  And where it is Thanksgiving or not, it's always good to think about:

What are you thankful for?