Thanksgiving

Last Saturday we celebrated Thanksgiving with our extended family of Americans and Canadians. It was a really fun, beautiful, delicious, and musical day.

I ordered sweet potatoes to share, which was a Thanksgiving first for us. Bogdan helped me to prepare one set of them like my grandmother used to with toasted marshmallows on top. We made another batch like candied yams. Yum!

Another fun first was a family concert after the meal. Lots of the kids and some of the adults shared music, and one family did a funny skit. That really added to the fun of the day.

Comparing their flutes

Trying piano and balalaika together

Dinner conversation

The concert

Trying a ukulele afterwards

Also, the past few years we have celebrated Thanksgiving late, which means that it falls on Holodomor remembrance day. I now put a memorial candle on the table with every Thanksgiving meal. At first it seemed strange to remember famine victims in the midst of such abundance, but then I realised that it actually fits with the theme very well. The first Pilgrims were thanking God for a good harvest after a hard start when half of them died. We can definitely remember tragedies while being thankful at the same time.