Happy Thanksgiving

I'm not sure where the blizzard went, but it missed us. It's cold indeed, so my brother and his family and my parents will not be with us today for our feast. Oh well, that still leaves us with 13. I'm hoping they come hungry, we have three pumpkin pies, one apple and one rhubarb/blueberry combo.... can't wait to taste them... I figure if we run out of turkey, we can make up for it by eating two pieces of pie...
After we are done feasting and done cleaning up, we are going to make Christmas spiders for our trees. I have a Grinch tree that has many beaded spiders hanging from its limbs. They are beautiful and reflect the light, however lots of folks are "What?" "Spiders?"
Yep, so I'm going to share the legend of the Christmas spiders with everyone today. I believe spiders aren't all that bad....


Legend of the Christmas Spider

The day before Christmas the mother of a family made a huge effort to get her home clean so it could be decorated and made ready to be blessed by the Christ child on Christmas. The spiders fled before the vigorous onslaught of the broom. They scurried away to hide up in the furthest reaches of the attic.
The house was cleaned and decorated with great care. A Christmas tree was brought in and arrayed with ornaments and decorations. That night, when the family had gone to bed, the spiders returned to the main rooms of house to see what the flurry of activity had been all about. They were delighted by the beauty of the home. The Christmas tree was the center of attention, however, and the spiders ran to the tree and danced throughout its branches so they could admire each and every one of the ornaments. Of course, to do this, the spiders had to spin their webs, so the tree was soon wrapped with strands of dull gray spider silk.
In the morning, the Christ child came to bless the house. The tree was beautiful to him, for after all, the spiders were among God's creatures, but he knew the mother, who had worked so hard to clean the house, was not likely to view the webs the same way. The Christ child touched the spider webs and they began to glisten and glimmer and turn to sparkling garlands of gold and silver.
In the morning, the entire family gathered about the Christmas tree and exclaimed that it had never looked so lovely! Only the mother knew that the sparkling strands were a true Christmas miracle and not some last-minute decoration. Since that time, it has been tradition to bedeck the tree with garlands and tinsel. While the mother still chases the spiders away for cleaning on Christmas Eve, she remembers and honors the Christmas miracle by hanging a spider ornament among the branches of the tree.

In the meantime, before we think of Christmas, just want to say I'm thankful for all the blessings of this year... it's been a great one. Thanks for all of you. It's really rather amazing that we can connect from miles around the country, or the globe for that matter, and keep tabs on what we are doing... until this weekend, when I hope to have some time to tell you about my Christmas gift, Gut Essen.