Come, ye thankful people, come,
raise the song of harvest home;
all is safely gathered in,
ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide
for our wants to be supplied;
come to God’s own temple, come,
raise the song of harvest home. (Henry Alford)

So that went well. I got up, I made a pot of coffee, then I started cooking. All morning.

Of course there’s nothing unusual about cooking all day on Thanksgiving. But this year it just felt good to do something that specific and that special. No, we didn’t have a house full of people, and we didn’t have quite the variety of foods we typically enjoy – but we did have my mum and dad and I did go to every length to make it a real Thanksgiving Feast.

And that’s the point, the “special” part. We’re always thankful, gratitude is fundamental to our family ethos; but the reason we celebrate this particular day is to make a big deal of the fact that we enjoy blessings out of proportion to any reasonable expectation.

• Rebekah and I are not just alive, we experience abundant life;
• we don’t just love each other, we love deliberately and extravagantly;
• we aren’t just part of a church, we enjoy the vibrant, light-saturated, faithful, generous faith-community that is WFPC;
• we don’t just have jobs, we are privileged to have the opportunity to touch thousands of lives with light, grace, encouragement, and promise;
• we don’t just live in a house, we thrive in the beautiful community of Wake Forest;
• we don’t just have a family, we have been blessed with Andrew, Alicia and Mr. T, Naomi, Craig, David, Beks and Geoffrey…

Over the top:

So when we sit down to celebrate on Thanksgiving Day you can forgive us if we go a little over the top. Thirty people lining a long banquet table? Or just the four of us around the small drop leaf yesterday afternoon? Regardless, the principle is the same.

I didn’t remember to do great food photography – that’s often the case when I’m distracted by cooking – but here is a partial representation.

Regardless, we are – and I like this phrase so much I’m using it again – blessed out of proportion to any reasonable expectation.

In love, and because of love – DEREK

BTW, the answer is “Yes, I made that mincemeat pie!“