Christmas Music....With Words, Please!

 

Thanksgiving Dinner with the Silvano's
(Our Language Teacher and his wife)

Our Thanksgiving Feast

Our first Thanksgiving here in Peru was good.  We invited our language teacher and his wife to have dinner with us.  This is the first time I've cooked a whole Thanksgiving meal by myself!  Matt took care of cooking the turkey - it was yummy!  When we are with my family in the States, I am normally in charge of the veggie platter, the cheeses and summer sausage, and the crackers!  I was nervous about how it was all going to turn out, but it was all done at the same time, and everyone said it was delicious!   Throughout October and November, we were writing down our "Items of Thankfulness" on construction paper leaves and saving them in the "basket."  Matt opened our "basket" and read all our leaves, and we had a great time just being thankful and just being together.

And, I kept my promise to Matt that I wouldn't put up ANY Christmas decorations until AFTER Thanksgiving!

 I am still working on making some ornaments for the tree, but this is our first official tree since we've had since we've been married!  I wish you could have seen the kids reaction to the Christmas tree - especially once I turned the lights on!!
 I turned on some Christmas music yesterday, but it was without words! Martha was very disappointed about this, and immediately requested Christmas music - WITH words!  Most of my Christmas music is instrumental, but I did have a CD with words, so I put it in, and she was much happier!  Ian didn't care one way or another - he's just fascinated with the tree!  I have to keep reminding him not to touch it, though!  He likes to see how close he can stand next to it without actually touching it!

"The Bers" and Family Traditions

When I lived in the Philippines, I learned about "The Bers."  I always look forward to "The Bers"!  What are "The Bers"?  "The Bers" are the last four months of the year.  You know -SeptemBER, OctoBER, NovemBER, and DecemBER!!  The coming of "The Bers" means two of my favorite times of the year are close at hand - Fall and Christmas!  So now October is here, and so is my favorite time of the year!  As you can see through my windows it is still pretty gray and gloomy looking outside!  But everyone tells me it is Spring!  Since there are no fall colors here in Peru, so I decided to remedy that and put fall on my windows!  My Honey looked so pleased when I finally got all the leaves cut out and hung up on the windows.  He said, "Now it LOOKS like fall!"

The sun shone for a little while on Sunday, and then again yesterday.  It was enough sun that Martha came home sunburned!  She is a lovely shade of pink right now - what a blessing that one of her favorite colors happens to be pink!  Matt took this picture of the sun peeking through the clouds.  It was exciting to see the sun - we haven't seen it for months!  That's how our winter here in Peru is, though!  I look forward to seeing the sun again during summer!

But, back to Fall and my leaves.....my leaves have more than just a mere decorative purpose - oh, yes!  These leaves are going to play a major role in our Thanksgiving meal this year!  No, I'm not going to sneak them into the stuffing or mashed potatoes!  As I was cutting out these leaves, I got to thinking that I wanted them to be more than just a decoration - I wanted them to have a purpose.  So the Lord gave me a beautiful idea - which is going to become a family tradition!  Bro. Ross, one of our teachers in college, always used to say, "Thanksgiving must be practiced!"  So that is what we are going to do!  Every day one of us gets to take a leaf off the window, and I write on it one thing that the person who removed it is thankful for and sign his/her name.  I made a little "basket" and hung it on our bulletin board.  We are "collecting leaves" in our basket.  On Thanksgiving, we will open our "basket" and read all the things we are thankful for.  I am going to have to make more leaves to last us until Thanksgiving, but I am excited to have a new family tradition!

When "The Bers" come, I always long for fall colors, for picking apples from Hick's Orchard, and for drinking fresh apple cider with fresh apple cider donuts!  It is a great joy and comfort to look at my windows and see my little piece of Autumn!  And I have the fun of looking forward to reading over all our reasons to be Thankful on Thanksgiving Day!  I hope today will be a beautiful Autumn day for you...no matter where you live!