The Thanksgiving Recap

We survived Thanksgiving, did you? We ended up having 14 students come, as planned. for the 4th annual International Students Thanksgiving Feast at our home. Most students were from Saudi Arabia, but we also had some from Qatar, Dominican Republic, China, and South Korea. Quite the diverse Thanksgiving celebration, huh? We spent a lot of time cleaning the house on Wedsnesday, and then Thursday was devoted to preparing all of the food. We made a 20 lb turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, 2 kinds of stuffing (one with meat and one without for the Muslims), cornbread casserole, rolls, cranberries, and pumpkin pie.

We had an enjoyable time and it was the first Thanksgiving celebration for most of the students. We told about the history of the holiday and explained all of the various traditional foods. Scott didn't cut the turkey until everyone had arrived because they always enjoying seeing the full bird, and then watching him cut it.

Here are some of the students watching him. They loved it! He used an electric knife and really went to town. They found it so fascinating.

Since Thanksgiving is a family holiday, we wanted to have everyone sit at the same table and simulate a family-style meal. We extended our table and jam packed everyone around it. We could hardly move, but the students didn't care. They were enjoying trying all of the new foods. Here's half of the table.

And the middle of the table. It extended even more to the left beyond the picture. We stuck a card table at the end and made a super long table. We sat around and ate, and talked, and ate, and talked some more. It was really an enjoyable meal.

Afterwards people played games, talked about Black Friday, and scoured the ads for deals. Most left by 6pm, so that gave us time to finish cleaning up and relax. We're thankful for the resources, time, and energy to open our home and share our traditions with others. Seeing how much some of the students appreciated the opportunity to visit our home made all of the work worth it.

Friday we did venture out and do a little shopping. We didn't leave home until 11:30 though, and were still able to get the things we wanted. No doorbuster deals, but that was ok with us. Reading the ads on Thursday made it tempting to try and score some of the deals...a new digital SLR camera, a leather sectional for the basement, a flat screen TV, a portable DVD player, etc. The list of wants could go on. While some of those new, updated items would be nice, we both decided we don't need to spend the money on them. Our 16-year old TV still works, so why replace it? We have a digital camera that is adequate. We do have furniture in the basement that is old, but it's fine.

In the midst of such terrible economic times, I'm amazed at all of the people that were out spending tons of money. Perhaps that's what sets us apart...self-control not to spend money even though we could afford it, and contentment with things that are adequate. It does help that we keep each other accountable most of the time to not impulsively buy. If we reacted to every little urge to buy something or spend money, we would be in the poorhouse or up to our eyeballs in debt. We're ok having older things and a greater sense of financial peace and security. For that, we are thankful to God this post-Thanksgiving season.