God has blessed me in ways I would never have thought possible. He has provided gifts that I never knew I wanted or needed. I am very thankful for all these things, of course.
As I write this, I find myself being most thankful for family and friends who now reach from California through Arizona, to Texas, up to Kansas, across to Illinois, down to Louisiana, up to Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, down through North Carolina and then to Florida.
I wish for all of you the celebration of your thankfulness for God’s blessings in your own circle of family and friends.
We have known each other only a short time, but the things we share, our Conservative political beliefs and love for our Nation, make all of us the kinds of friends we cherish for a lifetime.
In 2003, one of the blessings I enjoyed most was spending some time in our mother country, England. I lived in a village just outside Canterbury called Petham. As Thanksgiving rolled around and I began talking about my turkey and dressing, those poor people had no idea what I meant. I decided to show them.
I prepared a typical Southern American Thanksgiving Feast and invited seven of my closest British friends. We had the traditional turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, vegetables, pecan and pumpkin pie and a big glass of iced tea.
We sat around the table with them asking questions about why we celebrate the holiday with this or that and for many of their questions I had no answer except, “we’ve always done it that way in my family.”
The one answer they all seem to remember most is why we have the feast in the first place. I smiled and told them that the Pilgrims who had come from England seeking religious and personal freedoms had wanted to celebrate the bounty of goodness from God to honor the wonderful land He had provided. “So we are thankful that we are not British living under a crown and a state sponsored church,” I told them.
We all still talk about that evening that we shared our thanks with and for each other. They were very impressed with our tradition. Everyone shared the things they were most thankful for. One terrific person said that he was glad America had split from England so that I could eventually show them what good Southern cooking is all about.
What I have come to call my British Thanksgiving brought a whole new meaning of this holiday into my life with the warmth of the true meaning of the holiday now forever in my memory.
As you celebrate your own family traditions on Thanksgiving Day, I wish you the same warmth of companionship with friends as you acknowledge the blessings of God in your own lives.
God bless you………. And God bless America!
Marie A Cole
