Our plans for Thanksgiving changed that morning. I had started sneezing (hard) the night before and I woke up with a scratchy throat and stuffy nose. Not only is that yucky, but it meant that we couldn’t spend the day with my parents.

My mom had a rare blood disease several years ago. The only known cure was a stem-cell transplant. We were very lucky and they were able to find her a perfect match. An unrelated woman from another state. She had the transplant but the recovery is very difficult. Needless to say, the explanation could take several posts. What I’m trying to get at here is that her immune system will never be the same again. She has to be very careful about being around anyone who is sick. She can catch things easily and it can turn very bad for her very quickly.

So, wanting to wallow in my pout, my mom kept a positive attitude when I told her and she kept me from slipping into a depressed day. We quickly came up with a plan to share our food even though we couldn’t be together. Plus, I had to keep it together for the kids.

After figuring how how to salvage the day and food, I started thinking about being thankful. A couple of MOPS meetings ago, one of the mom’s gave a wonderful devotional about being thankful. I was thinking about that. Then, I remembered seeing a Thankful Tree on Pinterest (yes, Pinterest – get over it already). I sent A outside to find a branch and I cut out leaves from construction paper.  We made a centerpiece for our table.

During dinner we took turns thinking of things we were thankful for and wrote them on the leaves. I really, really loved this activity. I think that it’s going to become a family tradition for every Thanksgiving from now on.

And our dinner…. It was yummy! We had turkey, cranberries, stuffing, gravy, mashed sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and rolls. We were too stuffed to even eat pie!

So, what started out to be a possibly bad day, turned out to be really nice. I still missed seeing my parents, but having a day home with my kids and hubby sure made me think about how thankful I am for many, many things in my life.

Do you have any Thanksgiving traditions?

Manda