Our Week of Thanksgiving

It is Thanksgiving week, already, as if I haven't been inundated with enough Christmas frenzy already, we still have our Thankful Week to rush through, I mean enjoy, before we head in to one of the most beautiful times of our Liturgical year, the season of Advent, of waiting, and preparation for the Birth of Our Lord.

This of course isn't the only week of the year that we are truly thankful for all the blessings in our lives, there are so many levels of gratefulness here at Sweetness and Light, it would take a year of blog posts to list them all, but for this week, we are focusing on our Family Life and Love and what it means to Supplicate and Praise God for all his goodness in our lives.  Hearth and Home of course will be at the forefront as we prepare all of our delectable eats for Thanksgiving Day!

Our Thankful Tree is beginning to blossom, here's a picture of what it looked like last year at this time,

...and if you haven't seen all the lovely Thankful Tree pictures that Karen Edmisten put together last year, it's a nice visit for your week, and it's not too late to whip one of these up!!  We will be watercolor painting more leaves today and filling up our tree all week!!

Picture Book Spotlight for this Week:

Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin (see resources at Homeschool Share)

Chester Chipmunk's Thanksgiving by Barbara Williams

An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving by Louisa May Alcott

The Thanksgiving Story by Alice Dagliesh

A Turkey for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Poems selections by Myra Cohn Livingston

The Landing of the Pilgrims, Landmark Book

We made a lapbbok for Cranberry Thanksgiving several years ago, so I think this might be the week for a new one!!  Our Stitches and Stories read-aloud this week will be An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving and listening to The Children's Book of America, The Pilgrims First Landing.

We are enjoying all of the afternoon handicraft projects, especially our new knitting delights, I hope to post progress on my Tasha Tudor Shawl this week!

Another thing we will enjoy Wednesday in honor of The Presentation of the Child Mary is a scrumptious Carmel Apple Cider Teatime reminiscent of Dawn's yummy recipe!  This is a must have treat and especially yummy to the littlest ones!

I hope you are having an especially calm week of Thanksgiving with your sweet families!

Comments

[Jennifer]

This Thanksgiving Monday has been a delight! Lovely and calming, dh even suggested he pick up dinner after work (steak, he does a much better job picking out perfect cuts of meat than I do!) saving me a trip into town - pure bliss!

[AnneMarie]

Meredith, I LOVE your Thankful Tree! A wonderful, thoughtful idea!

[Eileen]

We love doing this sort of thing, too!

Last year, we did an Advent "Kindness Tree"--a construction paper (of course!) pine tree on the sliding glass door, on which we all stuck Angel ornaments, honoring anyone who was kind to us that day. I'm planning on putting one up again--maybe we'll get classy like you, though, and use real branches instead!

Always inspired by your wonderful ideas,
Eileen :)

P.S. Beautiful post on O Night Divine, too!

[Marianne]

Looks wonderful! Have a blessed week!

[Jessica]

Ooohh! I love your Thankful Tree! We will have to make one, my kids would love it. Also, thanks for posting the wonderful link for Cranberry Thanksgiving resources. I just picked up a copy of it yesterday at the library. We have never read it before, but it looks great.

[Cheryl]

Happy Thanksgiving to you too!

[Toni]

I *love* the Thankfulness tree, Meredith. And I have a question. You do such wonderful projects with your children. I find it sooo hard to work them in to our learning (even though we sprinkle elements of Charlotte Mason, unit studies and the classical approach in). Can you direct me to a past post that gives a glimpse of your daily time management for your homeschool and/or could you tell us a bit about that sometime? Thanks.
Have a most blessed Thanksgiving.
~Toni~

[MaryM]

What a great listing of resources and ideas. In this week of thanksgiving - I'm thankful for you and all you do to brighten so many lives, Meredith.