We Gather Together

By Carol Woolum Roberts

One of my mom’s favorite hymns was “We Gather Together”.  I always remember her singing this song on Thanksgiving as she prepared all the delicious items from her kitchen.

Today I am fortunate to gather once again with my family for Thanksgiving dinner.  Around today’s table will be Paul and myself, our daughters Molly and Zoe, (Cosette has to help keep the Thanksgiving Buffet at the University Inn in Moscow running smoothly, so her, Taylor and Saphire are unable to join us), brother Bill and sister-in-law Debbie, and sister Christy. 

I love to have people gather around our table and enjoy good food, enjoy good conversation and enjoy good company.  I am thankful I have a home and a table that can accommodate large gatherings of people.

There is creativity in a special holiday meal.  Menu planning, table settings and decorations, and setting the right tone all contribute to creating a warm and comfortable place where people feel loved and accepted.

Tomorrow our menu includes turkey, dressing, potatoes (grown in our own garden), gravy, Thanksgiving-themed veggie tray made by Zoe and Molly, a cranberry dish, a sweet potato appetizer, a fall cocktail, wine, cranberry sauce, rolls, Pecan Pie, Pumpkin Pie (made with my own pumpkin puree), and Salted Coffee Shoofly Pie.  This is a new addition to our pie offerings.  I can’t wait to try it.

As I write this blog post, The Shoofly Pie has come out of the oven, the Pecan Pie is about to be done and the Pumpkin Pie continues to bake.  (A friend of mine makes her pumpkin pie with heavy cream instead of evaporated milk, so I decided, why not?  Let’s do the same thing!!)

Another special and creative addition to our Thanksgiving table are three Thanksgiving centerpieces created by Christy, Molly and Zoe.  We attended a workshop on Tuesday afternoon at Valley Violets, a local florist, and created the centerpieces.  Since I didn’t think we needed all four centerpieces, I gifted mine to a friend who has been sick this past week.  When I told her I was going to give her mine, she said she always bought one for her mom at Thanksgiving because it coincides with the week her grandma passed away. (Her mom’s mother).  I didn’t know this, so it made giving her the centerpiece even more special!

Tomorrow we gather together.  We reflect on the things we are thankful for.  We are reminded that in 1827, the noted magazine editor and writer Sarah Josepha Hale, (who, among other things, wrote the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”), launched a campaign to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday.  For 36 years, she published numerous editorials and sent scores of letters to politicians, earning her the nickname the “Mother of Thanksgiving”.

President Abraham Lincoln finally heeded her request in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, in a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation”.

Not a bad prayer for us to pray on this Thanksgiving Day as well.

Wherever you are, and however you gather today, I encourage you to think on the things you are thankful for today, and every day.  Because we are all very blessed.

We Gather Together

(remembering Mary Idell West Woolum on this Thanksgiving Day)

1.  We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing

He chastens and hastens His will to make known;

The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing

Sing praises to His name He forgets not His own.

2.  Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,

Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;

So from the beginning the fight we were winning;

The Lord was at our side—the glory be Thine!

3.  We all do extol Thee, Thou leader triumphant,

And pray that Thou still our defender wilt be.

Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;

Thy name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!

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What things are you thankful for this Thanksgiving Day?

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