One More Week

[My Dad, Senafont Shugak and my Mom, Vera during a Thanksgiving meal in Old Harbor.]

One week until Thanksgiving! I will take this time to wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving day ---whatever you plan to do or not do and or where ever you plan to be or not be. God bless!

We plan to have a progressive Thanksgiving dinner with the kids. First we will stop over at Tony and Kim's and she will have appetizers. Then we will go to Chris and Karla's where Karla plans to have the main meal prepared. Then after we spend time there we all will end up here at the lake for desserts and table games. Probably after a full afternoon of eating we should play moving around games!

I have been looking at desserts to make and am excited about that. Martha Stewart was on the morning show on NBC and she always has such beautiful food. I thought I would try to make at least one of her beautiful pies.

Some of you will be traveling for TG and I hope you have a safe trip.

One memory I have about TG was the time Dad moved us all up from the village to Anchorage. With ten kids and living in a new place and in a new environment things were lots different. Looking back I have to say that Dad was very adventurous to move his whole family like he did! Even with the complications of a previously broken back, he managed to find a job and keep us fed and warm.

My younger sister Ruth said that when her teacher asked the whole room if everyone would have a turkey for TG she had told her she didn't think that we would have a turkey for "Turkey Day."

It was so cool because we ended up having TWO turkeys and all the fixings for a dinner for twelve show up at our door a few days before Thanksgiving. One from Ruth's class and one from the Church that we attended on Sundays. Without those donations we would not have had a turkey, but we would not have gone hungry either, because Dad worked hard to keep us from that, we just would have eaten something else.

Benevolence during the holiday seasons is such a good thing, not only the holidays but throughout the whole year.

Now living through the years I find that it is indeed more blessed to give...than to receive. Giving with thankfulness.