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Making Memories and Giving Thanks

Four of our five children and their families will be joining us for Thanksgiving. Three will be staying with us. That means six adults and thirteen children sleeping over for several days and ten adults and fifteen children for Thanksgiving dinner. Whew! But what a joyful anticipation! As a Catholic grandma I have two goals -- creating memories and reminding everybody Who needs to be thanked for all the blessings we enjoy.

Since out-of-towners are arriving on Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm hoping for good weather so we can have a bonfire Wednesday night with hot dogs, s'mores, and a rosary of thanksgiving (or at least a few decades). Wednesday the men plan to play golf and I'm searching for craft ideas for the children. I think a thanksgiving jar would be great but when do we read the entries? Perhaps Thanksgiving night as a bedtime prayer activity. How I wish we could all sit around the same table together for the feast, but even with all the leaves in the table our max squeeze is 16 which leaves another eight (and a high chair) in the mix. So we will be in two rooms. The kids will love having their own table and I expect the adults won't mind having some grown-up conversation -- one more thing for which to be thankful. We are so blessed to have a house big enough to host everyone, something we deliberately thought about when we retired to the country and