Welcome to Day 25 (the final day) of our Giving Thanks project. Yesterday we talked about gratitude and some of the many benefits of living a life filled with gratitude. It seems like such a fitting topic as we approach Thanksgiving. If you missed that post, you can find it here: Gratitude.
Since Thanksgiving is less than 24 hours away, I’m sure that many of you have already planned out your menu, completed your shopping, and started to prepare the turkey. Since we are having a “Tiny Thanksgiving” this year, help stop the spread of Covid and keep our family safe, I’m making a chicken since I couldn’t find a “Tiny Turkey.” In my family, it’s not the turkey that gets everyone excited anyway, it’s all of the wonderful side dishes that accompany the bird.
If this was a normal year, my mom would be making her famous stuffing. It’s the same stuffing recipe that I’ve eaten every Thanksgiving for 50 years. My mother-in-law would be making cauliflower with cheese sauce, a side dish that my husband has loved since he was a child. His grandmother used to make it, but sadly, she passed away last year. His “Baba” was an amazing cook and was well known for her Rice Pudding and her Chocolate Cake, among many other things. She would never share her chocolate recipe because she was afraid we would stop asking her to make it for us. We’ve tried to replicate the chocolate cake since she passed, with some luck, but how we wish she had shared that secret recipe so that we could keep passing it down.
“In my South, the most treasured things passed down from generation to generation are the family recipes“.
Robert St. John
So tomorrow, I will try my hand at my mom’s stuffing and my mother-in-law’s cauliflower since they won’t be here. I’m not even going to attempt Baba’s chocolate cake though. I am grateful for all the wonderful traditions and memories of past holidays with our family and look forward to making more this year. It won’t look like last year, but at least we are healthy and safe.
I really hope you’ve enjoyed our 25 Days of Giving Thanks Project. It was incredibly therapeutic for me. Some days, I struggled to get my posts done before dinner (sorry ) but I hope you may have been inspired along the way. So while this project is now complete, that doesn’t mean we are done giving thanks. Tomorrow, let’s focus on family, friends, football, food, forgiveness, and all of life’s blessings, instead of what we are missing out on. Indeed, there is still so much to be THANKFUL for.
Until next time, keep focusing on the goodness around you.
With Gratitude,
Denise 🙂