Thanksgiving moments

I have two Thanksgiving moments from this year that I think I'd like to share. The first was a lunch time prayer that Mermaid Princess gave before lunch the day after Thanksgiving:

"Hi God! I wanted to ask you to take care of the kids in El Salvador who don't have very good homes and are living in the mud. Could you send them some new trees to build new homes with so they don't have to live in the mud? And could you send them some food and some new clothes? Actually, could you please take care of people who are needing homes and food everywhere and help us to know how to help them too? We are very thankful for all the food we have to eat and for being safe and warm and having lots of friends. I love you. Amen."

As the adult heads lifted up, there were tears in more than one eye. This caught me offguard, as we haven't talked about El Salvador in months AND we were all expecting the normal mealtime prayer - a poem in four rhyming lines.

My second moment was with Flash. We had talked, in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, about the two horrible winters the Pilgrims survived before being solidly established in this New World. I've been looking for the link that gave a detailed history of the first three Thanksgivings, but I can't find it right now. Suffice to say, for two consecutive winters, the Pilgrims had many days in which they had only 5 kernels of corn to eat as their rations.

So, two days after Thanksgiving, we had popcorn for snack. Flash took five pieces off his plate, pushed his plate to the middle of the table and said, "This is all the Pilgrims had for the whole day, right Mommy?"

"That's right, honey."

He studied the pieces, now arranged like the five dots on a die.

"They must have been hungry, Mommy."

"I think so, sweetheart."

Now, the storyteller in me would love to tell you he did something heroic here, which he didn't, other than generously sharing his popcorn with his siblings after eating some of his.

But I think I will be content that he is three, he understands our bounty, and he is learning to be grateful and empathetic. It's a good start!