Celebrate Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving. It's always been my favorite holiday. My mother's birthday was November 26-always around Thanksgiving. Then I married a man who was born on Thanksgiving! Guess what date? November 26, 1953! In 1985 I volunteered to have Thanksgiving at my home because I was pregnant and too close to my due date to travel. But then I had my baby two days before Thanksgiving and ended up having Thanksgiving dinner in the hospital. My baby was born on November 26! He was born in 1985, so how old is he now? (Do the math!) Here's a website he's made about changing our voting system!

Twenty years later I was writing Celebrate Thanksgiving with Turkey, Family and Counting Blessings and I really had to get my first draft in. I was working over the weekend. On Sunday November 20, right before Thanksgiving, my niece called and said she was going to have a baby that day. I wanted to be there. So I finished my draft that morning and got to the hospital in time for Henry's birth! O.K., so it wasn't November 26, but I dedicated the book to him anyway. Check out Henry's mom and the great work she does!

Every Thanksgiving since I can remember we celebrate with my family. I have a great family--and the family keeps getting bigger! I love it. I think there are almost more people who fit under the table than who don't. (What I mean is there are a lot of kids, not drunks!)

For many years my brother has cooked Thanksgiving dinner. Even though I show a very scary picture of him, he is a really good cook. Here's a picture of him cooking with my great nieces Natalie and Julia, and my great nephew Matthew. Phil's actually a pretty cool guy, too. He writes a blog about politics in Philadelphia. Phil's wife Essie is a great cook, too, and does all of the cleaning up. When she's not cleaning up after Phil, she's working with deaf children and their parents, being a wonderful grandma, and one of my best friends.

There are so many wonderful people around my Thanksgiving table! Why am I telling you all this? Because I am so thankful for my family! What are you thankful for? Please e-mail me! And also tell me in what special ways you and your family celebrate Thanksgiving. Send me recipes, stories, games, other traditions, and let me know if it's o.k. to put it on the web site.

Here's a really nice review of Celebrate Thanksgiving at Jelly Mom. Click here (and scroll down) to read it.

Also, Books on the Square (a great independent bookstore in Providence, R.I.) reviewed Celebrate Thanksgiving in their November 2006 newsletter.

Celebrate Thanksgiving was named as a Notable Social Studies Trade Book by the National Social Studies Teacher/Children's Book Council.