3rd Annual Thanksgiving Meal

This year for Thanksgiving we were able to host our 3rd Annual Thanksgiving Meal!  This is one of our longest standing traditions as a family, and it was also one of Enoch's first annual "events" to do twice {besides his birthday, of course}.   Hugh and I absolutely love this event, and we both get excited every year when it rolls around.  Here are a few of our traditions for this meal:

• eat a few traditional Thanksgiving dishes like turkey, dressing, and mashed potatoes with gravy
• read a psalm 
• share 1-2 things we are thankful for at the dinner table (everyone does this altogether)
• write thankful cards (we let each guest write as many cards as they want & then we provide the postage to mail them to whomever they are thankful for... wherever that may be.  This year we mailed cards to Mississippi, Tennessee, California, Ghana, Iran, and China.)
• play games afterward (games range from football to cards and puzzles)

international students from our FCN group

We began this tradition three years ago with our dear friends, the Skinners.  When the idea was first conceived, we were hosting a weekly event called "Friday Culture Night" in which we had snacks, tea/coffee and a few hours of conversation with international students about cultural topics.  So when Thanksgiving rolled around, it was only natural for us to introduce our international friends to a traditional Thanksgiving meal, as it is a big part of American culture.  We knew that most of them otherwise wouldn't have had a Thanksgiving meal.  {In fact, because Thanksgiving is ONLY celebrated in the US, this is sometimes an exciting "first" for international students.}  At the time, we had no babies {the Skinners now have a little girl around Enoch's age} and the Skinners lived in a spacious ministry house, just perfect for hosting a large Thanksgiving meal like this.  I recall splitting the cooking with Ashley and hosting around 15-20 international students plus a few American friends as well.  It was such a fun Thanksgiving party!!

Enoch's first Thanksgiving meal

Then, by the time the next Thanksgiving rolled around, both us and the Skinners had a baby!  I believe they had to travel that year, so we hosted the 2nd Annual Thanksgiving Meal at our tiny apartment.  We scaled it down a bit and had around 8 international friends join us that year, and even though it was slightly cramped, it was such fun anyway.  One of our friends was able to bring her mother {from China}, and she was so sweet to baby Enoch!

This year, for the Third Annual Thanksgiving Meal, we decided to plan our gathering on the Saturday before Thanksgiving in the mid-afternoon.  As always, we invited a few of our international friends (a few students and one new faculty member from Hugh's department with his wife).  We also invited quite a few American friends as well (mainly new friends from church), and they each chipped in by bringing a dish.  We had lots of good conversation, some tasty international dishes, and some delicious desserts!

This was our exceptionally long dinner table, seating around 16 people:

And here were all of our guests..  we had people from India, Iran, China, Mississippi, and of course Arkansas & N Dakota!