Over Thanksgiving, we went to my husband\u2019s aunt and uncle\u2019s house for the big feast. We go every year, and even though the aunt and my mother-in-law are the only two children from their family, their posterity really is quite vast. This year there were 55 there, and two of the larger families were missing. Big families. It\u2019s the joy.<\/p>\n
Besides, the \u201cpie count\u201d was 36 this year. That\u2019s 36 pies for 55 people. I don\u2019t care if that\u2019s a low ratio compared to years past. It\u2019s still more than half a pie per person. (And if we subtracted the infants, it\u2019d be even a better ratio.) Is it any wonder this is my favorite holiday?<\/p>\n
Even beyond pie time, though, my favorite part of the day (maybe everyone\u2019s) is singing time. In the late afternoon, my mother-in-law sits down at the piano. Cousin Sarah passes out binders of sheet music, and about 30 of the 55 sit on couches and the floor and sing songs about Christmas and the Savior and it\u2019s all in shockingly good harmony (almost everyone there has been in one choir or other, and some have even pursued professional singing careers, so it\u2019s not exactly shocking, I guess.) I\u2019m an alto, hitting the right notes here and there, but just basking in the lovely sounds. This year two of my kids joined, pulled themselves away from the jumping castle and the TV. Son sang bass, daughter sang alto with me. Her favorite is \u201cDo You Hear What I Hear.\u201d Someone filmed \u201cCandlelight Carol\u201d this year. If I can figure out how to link it, I will. It\u2019s a beautiful song.<\/p>\n
The next night we had a sit-around discussion talking about what we\u2019re thankful for. My mother-in-law said, \u201cMusic. It\u2019s how I believe we\u2019ve been able to raise good families who love the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n
I hope next year more of my children will join the tradition. Meanwhile, I\u2019m loving sitting at our own piano, in our own home, and singing while my oldest son plays the songs of the season.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s December now, so I guess I\u2019ll just say Merry Christmas now to start the month off right. I say let\u2019s get all this shopping done with asap so we can really enjoy the worship part of the joyous time of year.<\/p>\n\n
Over Thanksgiving, we went to my husband\u2019s aunt and uncle\u2019s house for the big feast. We go every year, and even though the aunt and my mother-in-law are the only two children from their family, their posterity really is quite vast. This year there were 55 there, and two of the larger families were missing. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[303],"tags":[82,646,647,645],"class_list":["post-1127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-2","tag-family","tag-music","tag-singing","tag-thanksgiving"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2OUjT-ib","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1129,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions\/1129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}