thanksgiving day

The week of Thanksgiving was spirit week for the ISB middle schoolers. Ben and Sam had fun making up costumes for each day. Sam wore a wig for walk on the wild side day. There was pajama day and fabulously formal day. My favorite was crazy sports day. Both boys tore through the garage looking for any and all of the sports equipment to add to their outfit, not excluding Caitlin's pink swimming goggles.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year. I remember coming home from school as a child, and finding my Mom in the kitchen making her mother's stuffing recipe, chopping the apples and sauteing the onions and raisins.

I love planning the meal, shopping for the trimmings, and seeing the kitchen counter all lined with freshly washed vegetables, and cans of the familiar Thanksgiving ingredients. Jenny of our Jenny Lou's knows what the expats want for the holidays. She is a blessing to our community. She was selling turkeys, but we bought ours through the commissary at the embassy. Wednesday evening I made four pies, two pumpkin, an apple, and a cherry pie.

The kids had school Thanksgiving day. I always fall behind on the bus routine when Rob is home in the morning. They were running late, so he drove the kids up to the bus stop. We spent the morning cooking. We told the children we would pick them up at noon. I hadn't been organized enough to arrange a meeting place or write notes to the teachers. Sam called me at ten-thirty to say he had contacted every one's teachers and all the kids would meet Dad by the LES office. I was impressed and grateful for Sam's assertiveness.

Grant was too sleepy to join us for lunch.

We tried to get all the kids to say something they were grateful for before we began eating. Of course there were a few "come back to me's" and a couple of "getting out of school early" answers, along with a few more earnest replies. Caitlin said she was grateful for the jello. (It was Grandma Martha's pear and cream cheese jello salad recipe.)

In the evening Rob dropped Olivia and Mary off at a birthday party at A-Z. The rest of us watched a movie together and ate pie when the party girls returned.

Friday morning I spent some time at ISB. The first graders were performing in the LES assembly. Then I wandered about. I paid off our cafeteria debts, talked to Kyle's Chinese teacher about his progress, read a Christmas story to Mary's class, then had lunch with Mary and Olivia. I was grateful to feel reconnected with school life.