We must be the only non-American family to celebrate Thanksgiving this side of the pond. This is partly because we are partial to holidays and like to celebrate as many as we can, and partly to honour Manfredi’s American relatives (I am thinking of you, Georgeann).

So we are busy getting ready for it. The food is there (in my mind, that is—the actual cooking will be a two-day job between Wednesday and Thursday) and the decorations are coming along nicely, especially now that Niccolo got involved. We made a Thanksgiving tree and shaped a horn of plenty out of DAS paste (when I say shaped, I mean sort of shaped—the horn got given some extraordinary ridges which make it look like a stegosaurus with no head).

The horn got painted today, and Nicco was adamant he wanted it to be blue, red and yellow. I could show him pictures of brown horns till the cows came home—he still wanted it multicolour, and in random patches please. Our mutant horn is drying now, and should be ready to be filled tomorrow with chestnuts, walnuts, pomegranades and grenadillas (not quite the traditional thing, I know, but they are a lovely shade of orange).

We’ll finger paint some turkeys next and turn them into place cards. I was hoping to find some more ideas in Five in a Row’s Thanksgiving ebook, which I downloaded today, but they had a Thanksgiving tree and a bread cornucopia, both of which we have sort of done.  Shame (although there are a couple of yummy recipes in there too, so I didn’t completely waste $6).

We are also reading up a lot on Thanksgiving, now that Niccolo is old enough to understand and enjoy what the celebration is all about. I have found loads of old, copyright-free stories to enjoy. Favourites so far are: The First Thanksgiving Day (from Wiggin and Smith’s Story Hour), The Visit (from Lindsay’s More Mother Stories) and The Spirit of the Corn (from Jenkins Oldcott’s Good Stories for Great Holidays).

Tonight we’ll start on Louisa May Alcott’s An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving. It’s long, and Nicco is probably too young for it, but we’ll see if Alcott works her literary magic on him.

P.S.: the Christmas kit is coming along nicely. I am looking for a decent e-sales solution now, and hopefully will be in business soon!