A Moment with The Homeschool Minute ~ Raising Real Men – Hal & Melanie Young

Thanksgiving is one of our favorite holidays! It’s one of the least commercialized and least mangled holidays of our culture. Even the name points people toward the God who gives good gifts.

It’s fascinating talking about Thanksgiving with our children. The Pilgrims were real people a lot like us–principled Christians who were very concerned about the upbringing of their children. They left England because they were being persecuted for their faith, then left the Netherlands, where they had religious freedom, because they were losing their children’s hearts to the culture. They were willing to suffer hardship to worship God and disciple their families as conscience and the BIble led them.

We love to read excerpts from their journals to our children and help them understand the sacrifices our forefathers made to settle this land. The first year of the settlement, nearly half the community died of sickness and starvation. The first Thanksgiving feast was a celebration of God’s blessings and His ending a time of great suffering. How they must have rejoiced to see God’s provision come in!

We also love preparing our hearts to be thankful. We sing Thanksgiving songs, talk about what we have to be grateful about, and sometimes even do a Thanksgiving tree or other physical reminder of God’s gifts. Thanksgiving reminds even the calloused to remember the God who made us and takes care of us.

This gives you a tremendous opportunity to be a testimony to your extended family! By introducing Christ-centered traditions and focusing on the meaning of the holiday, you can witness to your family in a very low key, winsome way. H Hosting the celebration at your house allows you to set the tone in a way you just can’t at someone else’s house.

You’re probably thinking that cooking for Thanksgiving is a tremendous lot of work, but it is so worth it when you realize the opportunity you have to glorify the Lord in it! That hard work may be the factor that makes older relatives willing to pass on the baton, too.

Be sure to ask other family members to help, though, not just to lessen your own burden, but to make everyone feels appreciated and to allow them to contribute as well. “Aunt Beth, could you make the seven layer salad? No one does it like you do!”

We’ve found that as we’ve introduced some new/old traditions to our feast, our extended family has actually welcomed and enjoyed them. We’ll never forget a dear relative filming our son reciting “Five Kernels of Corn” so that he could show his friends back in China!

What a great opportunity to help everyone remember what the celebration is all about!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hal & Melanie

For practical help in preparing your children for Thanksgiving, and putting on a Christ-centered (and wonderfully delicious!) Thanksgiving celebration, get our downloadable book, We Gather Together: Sanity and Celebration at Thanksgiving, for only $5! Click here!