November marks the beginning of the holiday season. Typically the first Tuesday in November is set aside to vote. Veterans Day is always the 11th, then Thanksgiving weekend, the super long, four-day weekend brings lots of smiles and full bellies. Do we actually take the time to “count our many blessings”? Are we truly thankful for the many loved ones in our lives? For the gifts, opportunities, freedoms, and comforts we enjoy? I need to be more appreciative.

I’ve been practicing a piano solo: “Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow”. It was written by Louis Bourgeois and arranged by Terri Hutchings. It is beautiful. Here’s the link for a free download: Free Piano Solo

Here’s another Thanksgiving arrangement by Ashely Hall for piano and violin.
Free piano/violin music
I play the piano part for kicks and giggles (and therapy), but have performed it with a friend who plays the violin part on her flute. Very pretty.

It seems like Christmas is everywhere by the time October rolls around, so taking time to honor our Thanksgiving traditions is important. My step mother would bake ginger bread cookies for us to decorate every year at Thanksgiving. The cookies were cut with a large ginger bread man cookie cutter. There were 10 of us kids, so you can imagine how many cookies she’d bake. She would supply us with different colored butter cream frosting, toasted coconut, M&M’s, red hots, thin strip licorice, life savers, chocolate chips, raisins, nuts, multi-colored sprinkles, basically any candy that would look cute as cookie decoration. We would frost and decorate 4 or 5 cookies each, then my dad would judge the top three cookies! My sisters always won! They were very artistic. I remember one cookie that looked exactly like the cowardly lion from the Wizard of Oz. Another one that resembled a Victorian style Santa, including the hood and cape. She used untoasted coconut for the white trim. He even had a black belt with a gold buckle and black boots! My cookies always had lots of M&M’s. LOL

We would sit together at our very large dining room table. The table was always set with my step mom’s best china. We drank from red “goblets” and one of the artistic sisters would make some kind of fun turkey or pilgrim to set by each plate. The food… ahhhh, was always delicious! That’s when I became a fan of dressing and cranberries. My dressing is tasty, but it will never match the scrumptiousness of my step mom’s.

Teaching Corner:
I found a cute Thanksgiving music idea on the web. If you click on the turkey link and scroll down there is a featherless turkey and then feathers. You can add the notes to the feathers and have the students place them in order from left to right on the turkey. Or you follow the directions given. Click here for the link: Free Music Activity Enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday. Soak up your blessings!