A Holiday Thank You

Happy Thanksgiving! The Bookers had a quiet holiday this year. Brad has been working some crazy hours for the past few months and had the entire day off so I absolutely insisted we stay home and rebuffed any would-be company.

Harper pronounces it "Shaun the Shipe", just like any good Irish lass should.

Our Thanksgiving (or Great Feast of Starch, as we call it) was simple. Since I am vegetarian and Harper is too (thus far), Brad opted to barbeque a couple of turkey thighs for himself while Harper and I were sated with poultry-esque veggie patties. We feasted on all the standards; mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, dressing, green beans, buttermilk biscuits, cranberry sauce, and finished with pumpkin pie for dessert. (Yes, store bought pumpkin pie. I am not as hard-core as you Bess “I’m going to whip up a couple of homemade pies on Thanksgiving morning and make everyone else look bad” Bauer.)

Those of you who have kids know that teaching manners gets big around two years old. So I thought a perfect way to reinforce saying thank you could be taught during the meal.

When our plates were served but before we started our meal we explained to Harper that Thanksgiving is a day when we say thank you for the things we love. Then I started by saying I loved daddy so thank you for daddy, and I love Harper so thank you for Harper etc. When I was done I asked Harper what she loved.

She looked down at her plate and said, “Sweet potatoes.” “Yes, sweet potatoes,” I encouraged. “Thank you for sweet potatoes.” “Thank you (cranberry) sauce,” she said. “Yes. Thank you for cranberry sauce,” I agreed. She went on. “Thank you green beans. Thank you chicken.” By this time she really was in the spirit of things and looked up from her plate. “Thank you dinosaurs. Thank you parks.” It was so sweet and heartfelt and I really feel like she understood the meaning behind the exercise. What a special moment to cherish and remember! Then Brad said his thanks and we ate.

Brad is totally going to love this movie some day, if he ever catches up on sleep. 

 

After dinner we all sat around in a carbohydrate coma for about an hour. Later, after we had washed the dishes and put everything away and after I was able to pry Harper away from Shaun the Sheep to put her to bed I finally, after two years of prodding, got Brad to watch The Princess Bride. Or, rather, it was playing on the DVD player while Brad slept through it.  

Oh well. Maybe next year.  

Season’s greetings from the Bookers!