Thankful

As part of our Thanksgiving festivities yesterday (we feasted a day early this year), we stuck post-it notes, one for each letter of the alphabet, down our stairway, and everyone in the family noted what they were thankful for, A to Z. (We like A to Z around here! Annual Christmas letter coming soon!)

The "rules" were that you had to REALLY be thankful for it, not just write a word because it had the right letter. Then at dinner, we passed around the letters and read them out loud. There were a few questionable items (Underdog? The University of Washington football coach?), but we'll let them stay...

Here's the final results:
Ashley, animals, art, accordions, aunts, apples, air conditioning.
Babies, blessings, benefits, bananas, band-aids, Bible, blankets, baseball, Ben, Bob, bed, books, brothers, beds, boots.
Coffee, church, cake, cats, curry, chocolate, cousins, cute babies, carpet, clothes, Converse sneakers.
Dark chocolate, Dad, Dillon, dolls, dresses, doctors.
Eternity, educators, earth, elders, eggs, ears.
Faithfulness, freedom, friends, food, family, fall, fun, forgiveness, Floyds.
Grace, God, games, girls, grandparents.
Husband, Harper, home, hotels, hugs, heat, health, Hollidays, hope.
Ice cream, information, icees, Ichiro.
James (Jamie, Jimmigan), a job, juice, Jesus.
Keilah, kindness, kisses, kites, kit-kats.
Lydia, light, love, laughter, light bulbs, Life Is Good shirt, lattes.
Mercy, Mom, medicine, missionaries, marriage, morning, mashed potatoes, music.
Names, naps, night, Nanny, Nancy Drew computer games, Nintendo DS, Nebraska football, nighttime, Nebraska.
Ocean, oceanside living, outside, oranges, onion roll ups.
Peace, pie, people, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, parents, pens, pencils, Pastors.
Quiet, questions, quesadillas, Quick-Trip.
Relatives, a room, rain, rainboots, rice, rain forests.
Susannah, Sarah, Simply Limeade, spring, safe travel, siblings, sun, sewing stuff, sisters, Steve Sarkishian, S-girls, summer.
Tom, tylenol, tissues, turkey, trains, tv, teachers.
Underwear, Underdog, uncles, undersea animals, umbrellas.
Vaseline, Valentines Day, vacuum, volleyball.
Water, waffles, watermelon, Warriors, winter.
eXpressways, X-Games, X-rays.
Yummy food, youth, yellow, yams.
Zeal! Zotz, zoo, zebras, ZacAttack.

But mostly, we echo the song of Psalm 100, as we give thanks to the Lord for all of His blessings to us:
Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Happy Thanksgiving to your home, too.