At this time of year, it is easy to run right past Thanksgiving and head directly to Christmas, the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus. When we have years like the one we are in, when Thanksgiving is so late in the month, the time between the two celebrated holidays is a week shorter than normal and people feel the rush to get right to Christmas.
When Janet and I grew up, our families refused to put up any Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving was over. It was the weekend after turkey day that the tree went up and whatever other decorations we had were put into place. Janet and I were talking about this earlier this week. We always had a real tree, with larger lights and the string tinsel that got hung over the branches of the tree. It was during my childhood that the first aluminum garland hit the stores and I remember the first year that we hung it on our tree. It was so much easier than the old fashioned string tinsel that you see in old pictures.
We had a music box with a Santa and handmade stockings that were knit for us by our Great Aunt Lucille in California. When the stockings came out, we knew that Christmas wasn’t far away. We also had some outdoor lights when the strings of little white lights became available, but we lived in a small house on a 40’ wide Chicago city lot so you can tell that we didn’t have room for many decorations. Janet’s family situation was much the same other than they changed over to an artificial tree much earlier than we did. We lived less than a mile from each other growing up.
For most of our married lives, Janet and I have followed the same traditions. Even when we had much larger homes that our parents did, we waited until after Thanksgiving to start the annual decorating. It used to take four full days of work over two weekends for us to get the multiple trees up and the rest of the decorations in place. That included the lighted garland around the horseshoe balcony and moving the grandfather clock up to the landing to make way for the large tree in our entry. As we look back on it, it wasn’t all that much fun to decorate – it became quite a chore. Now, that seems counter intuitive for the start of the Christmas season!
The last several years, we have bent our self imposed rules a bit. We have decorated the lower level of our current home before Thanksgiving but have usually waited for the rest of the house until the holiday was over. Last year, we bent the rules a little more and started to put up the outdoor nativity and a tree or two on our main level.
However, as I write this post tonight, our house is FULLY decorated for Christmas. It will eliminate the rush to get things done after Thursday and the start of the Advent season will be much more pleasant. I really think that slowing down as we grow older is the real reason that we decided to go ahead and get things ready for Christmas. Additionally, we want to enjoy the Advent season and we were fortunate that Carter, one of our grandsons, was home this weekend to help us. It’s just too difficult to make dozens of trips up the stairs to our cold storage area and bring down countless boxes of ornaments and decorations.
So now, it’s full speed ahead preparing for Thanksgiving on Thursday. Andrew will be assisting me and fixing my 52nd consecutive turkey. We cook the largest bird we can find, this year at 26#, and then generally do a second bird for leftovers, etc. The entire family has been raised on this family recipe that is more than 100 years old. Clearly, its a big hit!
The turkey is just the tip of the day. Let’s not forget the reason for the holiday. It is important that we spend time in reflection and thankful appreciation for the blessings that we have experienced this year. Our verse for tonight comes from Paul’s first letter to his church in Thessalonica. Paul tells them, and us, in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
My encouragement this evening is that God wants us to experience life to the fullest and to be grateful and thankful for the mercies and grace that we have received. This is in addition to the blessings that have been bestowed on us. My prayer is that we will spend time in reflection and prayer Thursday as we remember the last year and look forward to the blessings that He will provide us in the coming year. In fact, we should pray about divine mercies every day… Have a great day in the Lord, grace and peace… And a very Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!