Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving day was precisely one of the main reasons I fell in love with our home when we decided to buy it.  I pictured the big, functional kitchen serving the special day's purpose for me and the women in my family getting together to share new and old recipes and a long morning of chopping, mixing, baking, chatting, sipping sparkly drinks and making memories together.

Thanksgiving 2011 also inspired me to continue a tradition in my new family.  Always the woman who likes things that have multiple functions, we brought out the "Thanksgiving Tree."  Once again, this lovely little thing wasn't purchased new, but rather came from an estate sale of one of the most lovely women in Austin I've ever met.  My oldest daughter set out on a nature walk and collected the prettiest acorns I never knew we had, large leaves and other things to turn our Thanksgiving Tree into the centerpiece.  We cut out leaf shapes from poster board, painted both sides with bronze, gold and copper paint, punched a hole in the stem and placed ribbon through the hole.   With a brown sharpie marker, I wrote our dinner guests names on the leaves so they would serve as place card holders.  Throughout the morning, the brown sharpie was passed around and each guest wrote on the opposite side what they were thankful for and hung their leaf on the tree before we began our feast.  Some elected to read theirs aloud, while others felt the things they were most thankful for were personal.  Either way, I get to keep those special leaves and remember each and every special Thanksgiving from years past.