A Canadian Thanksgiving…

Like I mentioned before, I didn’t grow up celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving…at least not very often.  I grew up in Guatemala, in a mainly American and Guatemalan community, so we weren’t exposed to many Canadian traditions back then.  Now that I live in Canada and have my own little family, I’ve tried to start a few of our own “Canadian” traditions for our October Thanksgiving celebrations.  The other day I saw a quote that said “My favorite color is October!” and I totally agree!  I just love everything about fall in Western Canada!  Our biggest tradition so far is having my siblings come to our house for Thanksgiving weekend, and I try and put together a Thanksgiving meal.  Here are a few photos from our Thanksgiving this year…
We made cookie place cards and chocolate acorns for the table-settings.  And yes, we actually ate at the dining room table….I finally got my stuff cleared off it.  It happens about once a year, for Thanksgiving (maybe possibly for Christmas).  Now that it is cleared off, every time we’ve eaten there recently I feel like we need to have a really delicious dessert after every meal….
The moose is to represent our relatives who live in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and just Canada in general.  The tablecloth and place-mats are from Guatemala, to remember our family in Guatemala.
The cornucopia celebrates a good harvest and being thankful for abundance, good food and fall!I am so not an expert cooking meat or poultry….and have only cooked about 3 turkeys in my life….so our turkey was fairly amateurish (and would you believe, last minute?).  No time for a fancy bed of yumminess for this birdie…  I’m finding it really hard work to get a fancy meal cooked, put together and on the table….(really hard, that’s why I have to take a lot of photos of when it actually happens!)
This is the part where I feel a little lot more comfortable….the desserts.   Though I kind of lost my Mom’s pie crust recipe this year, so had to go on a big search….I think I found one close enough that it tasted the same (we use the old-fashioned version that uses an egg and vinegar).  Yummy pumpkin pie!!  Though we grew up eating a different kind–carrots disguised as pumpkin, since pumpkins were scarce in Guatemala for some reason…
A tradition that I’ve started in the last few years is making Linzer cookies for Thanksgiving.  This year I cut out moons, and decided they looked like mouths, so added some eyes for some cute little critter cookies.  I used a new Linzer cookie recipe with ground up pecans this year, but wasn’t sure if I liked the pecans in the dough.  I’ll try and find another recipe next year.  Do you have a recipe for Linzer cookies that you’d like to share?
We watched the cartoon A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and I just happened to have Charlie Brown’s ingredients on hand, so made up a plate for the kids….pretzel sticks, popcorn, jellybeans, and buttered toast!!  🙂
I like to have visual textual reminders of the season…..like a framed Thanksgiving printable
 The best part is sharing a delicious meal with family and remembering to live in an attitude of gratitude to God, for Him and all His blessings.