I always loved our old house best when it was decorated for Christmas. There is just something about a Victorian house all done up with bows and boughs. Not this house, it is best when it is surrounded with fall colour, the trees are heavy with apples, the pumpkins in the back are turning orange and lots of local produce is ready to cook. We hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner here for my mother, my siblings and a friend of the family and it went very well. There is something special about Thanksgiving in the country. It is much easier to remind ourselves of how blessed we are for the good food we have to eat. The ingredients for the meal were almost exclusively local, including the turkey and most of the produce was grown somewhere along our own road. The potatoes were grown in the garden alongside the pumpkins.
There was a lot for the kids to do. First we were eager to give everybody a tour of the property and get the kids to pick some apples. After dinner they went on a very memorable ride in the trailer pulled by the lawn tractor. We went up to the pond and then over to the graveyard where the pin slipped out and the trailer dumped it's load of tiny passengers. Nobody was seriously injured and once Matt fixed it, they willingly climbed back in. Then my sister made us laugh at the obscene pumpkins and then ended the night with a marshmallow roast on the back patio.
As soon as everybody started to leave, my mind instantly started to plan for next year's Thanksgiving celebration. I am hoping it will be even better. I'll buy hay for the trailer and the kids can have a wagon ride, and our turkey may be home-raised if all goes as planned. I just want to secure this houses place as "The Thanksgiving House".