Frost is on the pumpkin and it is Thanksgiving once again. Only the REALLYPOOR understand Thanksgiving: http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=7557124988498879303 to everyone else it is a Roman Feast of the last days, with everything but vomitoriums. To the prosperous middle and upper middle class and the well to do, it is the great meal preceding Black Friday: gorge, feast, digest, sleep, and wake up at 4a.m. or earlier, dressed in matching snowmen sweaters and head to the lines at Shopko, Wal-Mart or the Mall. For the ReallyPoor, Thanksgiving offers a day off from work (if it’s not your shift), sleeping late, watching the parades or actually going to a local one, and possibly coming home to anything but holiday fare. For the ReallyReallyPoor, such as the homeless and starving, it is a sad day, in which the best one can hope for is a Salvation Army dinner, or other community feed. For many, suffering the loss of a loved one, it may be the first Thanksgiving or two in which there is a very sad empty chair.
Thanksgiving Day is not a religious or Christian holiday but many use the holiday to give thanks to the Lord and Redeemer for all the good things they have enjoyed over the past year(s) and year to come. The origins of the holiday go back at least by report to the times of Jamestown when New World settlers sat down to eat with the native American, sharing their wisdom and farming and hunting techniques, and thanking God for freedom. The Pilgrims, the separatists of England, had just come from an oppressive environment in which England, divided from Rome, allowed freedom of worship openly for the Anglican Church, unless they stepped on Royal toes, and often beheaded or burned at stake dissenters, including Pilgrims. It was around the same time of the Hampton Court Conference of 1604 pleading with the Crown to provide a legal English Bible and freedom to worship, with the earliest thanksgiving services (of which there were many and not only one day a year) in 1607 with the famous Jamestown celebration of 1610 which lasted 3 days. (Wikipedia)
They were ReallyPoor. And Really (very) hardworking, building a liveable city from tree lumber and garden plots, and a great deal of thanksgiving to God for absolutely everything. Those who think that the ReallyPoor are lazy or do not know how to handle money, do not understand the concept of poverty or the circumstances which may keep people there for awhile. While sometimes poverty is a curse and a natural consequence of laziness or ‘issues’ such as drug use, misspending or other maladies, quite often it is a result of unalterable circumstances: e.g. a young mother’s husband abandons them or goes to jail and she has few job skills, or a hardworking middle aged father loses a limb in an accident, or a widow at 60 with no job history is cast on to an unfriendly world with a non-existent job market for persons in her category. ReallyPoor can happen over years or overnight, but it is not a character flaw.
The ReallyPoor, though, more than the wealthy or even middle class, are more apt to have faith in God, working faith in God, and more apt to be grateful for things most take for granted. In that way, Thanksgiving is a more sincere holiday for the reallypoor than for others. I can suggest a variety of ways to make the day cost less, or put a little panache on paltry offerings, and a lack of money is no reason not to celebrate, but the core of the day is finding ways to be grateful for what you do have that many do not.
I do not count that task as simple nor immediately easy: it is human nature to grumble and even feel despondent about what we do not have when others around us have so much. I have lived though with a fair amount among the upper middle class and I have lived so poor that it is inconceivable in a society which automatically defaults to welfare, which we would not take. How then are we to be thankful to God for next-to-nothing? The first thing, is to recognize, that gratitude and thankfulness are heart conditions which open the gates of heaven. Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch holocaust survivor whose family hid Jews during WWII, and most of whom lost their lives, tells of a story when she was taken to Ravensbruck, inside Germany, and modest, aging women were forced to strip for showers and delousing. Humiliated, cold, and despairing, they had to put their clothing into a pile and move along to the showers. The place was covered with roaches and bugs, but her older sister admonished her with a bible passage, “In all things, give thanks”. Corrie was not as obedient as her older sister and horrified was reluctant to thank God for anything at the moment. In resignation, though, she began to thank God for the roaches, crawling all over the clothing she left there, with the small portion of the scriptures she had in her pocket. After the showers, given back her clothing, she was able to keep that part of the Bible with her, a highly illegal contraband in the camp. Were it not for the roaches, making it too horrid for camp guards to touch, she would have been left without the Word in the camp, the one comfort that kept her going. (The Hiding Place)
One can be grateful that your children are alive and healthy, that there is a roof over one’s head even if it is not yours. One can be grateful for hot tea on a cold morning, for little graces. One can be grateful for even the things that make one despair: Roman 8:28 is a favorite verse of those of us who have been ‘ReallyPoor’–we know that ALL things work for the good, to them who love God, who are called according to His Purpose”—even the sad and bad. ReallyPoor is an attitude: find it a creative opportunity when there is so little. Do not become overwhelmed with how horrible everything around you turns out, and do not become obsessed with comparisons. The truth? Some of those perfect households with fine linen tablecloths, brass candlesticks, and catered dinners at Thanksgiving are sharing it without children who refuse to come home. Many of those homes have little or no faith in God, trusting only in themselves, a most despairing condition. The things do not define our attitudes or emotions, but our faith and choices to be thankful and creative do.
So let’s start with a few ways the day can be materially better, with next to nothing, and then look back at the day, and really count what thanksgiving to God means:
1. Attend a church or community worship service to set the day right.
2. Attend or watch a fun parade with your children: little money? Then poptarts or french toast all around: its as cheap as toast and an egg. No syrup? Try cinnamon sugar over melted butter. No cocoa? Hot tea with sugar or sweetner. Try one of the ReallyPoor breakfast ideas.
3. No turkey? Several suggestions: first, most communities hand out free turkeys and dinners somewhere, not only in community feeds but to individuals and families, for either signing up or showing up. If you are not comfortable with receiving a dinner in this manner, there are low cost alternatives. Turkeys can be expensive, and I do not know of many ReallyPoor people who can affort 16-25 dollars for a dinner, even when counting leftovers. One can do unusual things though that delight children and husbands who were counting on nothing more than grilled cheese. Baked chickens are smaller but feed a whole family and can be purchased for under $5.00! One year, poor as dirt, we found a ridiculous sale on cornish game hens, usually priced too high, and I bought myself and two children each one: they didn’t have alot of meat on them but they were tickled at the idea of a whole little chicken to themselves. It isn’t the entree itself, it is the care and attitude and presentation of the meal. What about a Spam Thanksgiving? (Spam’s gotten a little high). Put it on a Turkey Platter with garnishes from a garden or wild flowers! Make it a funny meal if you have to: you will find children joining in and you will have what many wealthy families do not: love and laughter. Cost: priceless. (stole that for real).
One way you can end up with a full course great meal and teach your children an invaluable lesson, is to volunteer at a homeless shelter or community feed to serve others who have no where to go on Thanksgiving. Your children will see it as a cool thing to do, with lots of nice people around, setting large tables, helping with cooking or serving, and often seeing others with even less, giving them a new appreciation for a place to live and food to eat. The newly taught benevolence then comes with a great turkey dinner, as volunteers often eat with those who attend and help, and once again, a gracious network of fine friends may be established, usually of a healthier sort, a great boost especially to poor and single parents. One should do this benevolently though, and not just for the meal to create a clean heart.
4. Plan an at home activity for children: set up family traditions. Take out a dish with a cover and drop in notes on what each child is grateful for. Cost:free. Buy if necessary at a thrift store or garage sale a beautiful tablecloth to be used only on special days. Go each year to a community activity. Have a legal outside bonfire and roast marshmallows. Hot cocoa can be as cheap as 1.19 a box. One day, mom, come on. You can dig in the sofa to find change. Make popcorn for the parade.
5. Make a creative centerpiece: dry out autumn leaves, gather branches, make little paper objects. Use construction paper and paste to make pilgrims and turkeys. Use old giveaway clothes and cut them into matching squares and hem them for matching cloth napkins, and make matching napkin rings or holders. Teach proper place settings for silverware even if it is old, mismatched and/or plastic: you can still train high-class manners. The dollar Store has dollar stemware: I bought one for each of my children and we drank diet cola out of them. Too classy for words. Make woven placemats, or find some in church thrift sales. Church rummage sales are great places to get everything you could ever need for holidays because a lot of people give away quality items for these sales rarely used. Wait till the last day of the sale when they do dollar a bag, and then think ahead. These sales are often in September. You can create beautiful real holiday tables completely for a dollar or maybe two, by thinking about what you will need and making a mad grab for it: placemats, silver, serving dishes, cookers, stemware, decorations etc. throw em all in.
5. Read the Bible: never leave it out: have each child choose a favorite passage.
6. Got a guitar or piano? Sing out loud, all you want, its your house nobody can stop you. No instrument? Save shoeboxes and string rubber bands or use combs with wax paper for a “ReallyPoor” kazoo.
7. Thanksgiving is about thanks to God first, and the people in your life. Use the day to mend relations, to see aging aunts or mothers, or grandparents.
8. Spend just pennies and buy one sweet dessert you normally cannot afford, or make one. Jello and cool whip if nothing else. Make the day special. Dress up for dinner. Fix your little girl’s hair in a special way; make your little boy a newspaper hat: anything to liven up the mood.
Now take a look at the above: what will you possibly miss on Thanksgiving? You’ve got the meal, the dressings, the special times and events, parades, love and laughter, and terrific memories. You spend almost nothing. You save as much as $200.00, and if you think this is an overestimate, go price 22lb turkeys, all the ingredients for side dishes, specially made floral centerpieces, dinnerware etc and with a little ingenuity, you’ve created a memory at least as good. In all things give thanks. Nothing is impossible with God. Gotta go check the turkey.
ekb-reallypoor.
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Thanksgiving Day is not a religious or Christian holiday but many use the holiday to give thanks to the Lord and Redeemer for all the good things they have enjoyed over the past year(s) and year to come. The origins of the holiday go back at least by report to the times of Jamestown when New World settlers sat down to eat with the native American, sharing their wisdom and farming and hunting techniques, and thanking God for freedom. The Pilgrims, the separatists of England, had just come from an oppressive environment in which England, divided from Rome, allowed freedom of worship openly for the Anglican Church, unless they stepped on Royal toes, and often beheaded or burned at stake dissenters, including Pilgrims. It was around the same time of the Hampton Court Conference of 1604 pleading with the Crown to provide a legal English Bible and freedom to worship, with the earliest thanksgiving services (of which there were many and not only one day a year) in 1607 with the famous Jamestown celebration of 1610 which lasted 3 days. (Wikipedia)
They were ReallyPoor. And Really (very) hardworking, building a liveable city from tree lumber and garden plots, and a great deal of thanksgiving to God for absolutely everything. Those who think that the ReallyPoor are lazy or do not know how to handle money, do not understand the concept of poverty or the circumstances which may keep people there for awhile. While sometimes poverty is a curse and a natural consequence of laziness or ‘issues’ such as drug use, misspending or other maladies, quite often it is a result of unalterable circumstances: e.g. a young mother’s husband abandons them or goes to jail and she has few job skills, or a hardworking middle aged father loses a limb in an accident, or a widow at 60 with no job history is cast on to an unfriendly world with a non-existent job market for persons in her category. ReallyPoor can happen over years or overnight, but it is not a character flaw.
The ReallyPoor, though, more than the wealthy or even middle class, are more apt to have faith in God, working faith in God, and more apt to be grateful for things most take for granted. In that way, Thanksgiving is a more sincere holiday for the reallypoor than for others. I can suggest a variety of ways to make the day cost less, or put a little panache on paltry offerings, and a lack of money is no reason not to celebrate, but the core of the day is finding ways to be grateful for what you do have that many do not.
I do not count that task as simple nor immediately easy: it is human nature to grumble and even feel despondent about what we do not have when others around us have so much. I have lived though with a fair amount among the upper middle class and I have lived so poor that it is inconceivable in a society which automatically defaults to welfare, which we would not take. How then are we to be thankful to God for next-to-nothing? The first thing, is to recognize, that gratitude and thankfulness are heart conditions which open the gates of heaven. Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch holocaust survivor whose family hid Jews during WWII, and most of whom lost their lives, tells of a story when she was taken to Ravensbruck, inside Germany, and modest, aging women were forced to strip for showers and delousing. Humiliated, cold, and despairing, they had to put their clothing into a pile and move along to the showers. The place was covered with roaches and bugs, but her older sister admonished her with a bible passage, “In all things, give thanks”. Corrie was not as obedient as her older sister and horrified was reluctant to thank God for anything at the moment. In resignation, though, she began to thank God for the roaches, crawling all over the clothing she left there, with the small portion of the scriptures she had in her pocket. After the showers, given back her clothing, she was able to keep that part of the Bible with her, a highly illegal contraband in the camp. Were it not for the roaches, making it too horrid for camp guards to touch, she would have been left without the Word in the camp, the one comfort that kept her going. (The Hiding Place)
One can be grateful that your children are alive and healthy, that there is a roof over one’s head even if it is not yours. One can be grateful for hot tea on a cold morning, for little graces. One can be grateful for even the things that make one despair: Roman 8:28 is a favorite verse of those of us who have been ‘ReallyPoor’–we know that ALL things work for the good, to them who love God, who are called according to His Purpose”—even the sad and bad. ReallyPoor is an attitude: find it a creative opportunity when there is so little. Do not become overwhelmed with how horrible everything around you turns out, and do not become obsessed with comparisons. The truth? Some of those perfect households with fine linen tablecloths, brass candlesticks, and catered dinners at Thanksgiving are sharing it without children who refuse to come home. Many of those homes have little or no faith in God, trusting only in themselves, a most despairing condition. The things do not define our attitudes or emotions, but our faith and choices to be thankful and creative do.
So let’s start with a few ways the day can be materially better, with next to nothing, and then look back at the day, and really count what thanksgiving to God means:
1. Attend a church or community worship service to set the day right.
2. Attend or watch a fun parade with your children: little money? Then poptarts or french toast all around: its as cheap as toast and an egg. No syrup? Try cinnamon sugar over melted butter. No cocoa? Hot tea with sugar or sweetner. Try one of the ReallyPoor breakfast ideas.
3. No turkey? Several suggestions: first, most communities hand out free turkeys and dinners somewhere, not only in community feeds but to individuals and families, for either signing up or showing up. If you are not comfortable with receiving a dinner in this manner, there are low cost alternatives. Turkeys can be expensive, and I do not know of many ReallyPoor people who can affort 16-25 dollars for a dinner, even when counting leftovers. One can do unusual things though that delight children and husbands who were counting on nothing more than grilled cheese. Baked chickens are smaller but feed a whole family and can be purchased for under $5.00! One year, poor as dirt, we found a ridiculous sale on cornish game hens, usually priced too high, and I bought myself and two children each one: they didn’t have alot of meat on them but they were tickled at the idea of a whole little chicken to themselves. It isn’t the entree itself, it is the care and attitude and presentation of the meal. What about a Spam Thanksgiving? (Spam’s gotten a little high). Put it on a Turkey Platter with garnishes from a garden or wild flowers! Make it a funny meal if you have to: you will find children joining in and you will have what many wealthy families do not: love and laughter. Cost: priceless. (stole that for real).
One way you can end up with a full course great meal and teach your children an invaluable lesson, is to volunteer at a homeless shelter or community feed to serve others who have no where to go on Thanksgiving. Your children will see it as a cool thing to do, with lots of nice people around, setting large tables, helping with cooking or serving, and often seeing others with even less, giving them a new appreciation for a place to live and food to eat. The newly taught benevolence then comes with a great turkey dinner, as volunteers often eat with those who attend and help, and once again, a gracious network of fine friends may be established, usually of a healthier sort, a great boost especially to poor and single parents. One should do this benevolently though, and not just for the meal to create a clean heart.
4. Plan an at home activity for children: set up family traditions. Take out a dish with a cover and drop in notes on what each child is grateful for. Cost:free. Buy if necessary at a thrift store or garage sale a beautiful tablecloth to be used only on special days. Go each year to a community activity. Have a legal outside bonfire and roast marshmallows. Hot cocoa can be as cheap as 1.19 a box. One day, mom, come on. You can dig in the sofa to find change. Make popcorn for the parade.
5. Make a creative centerpiece: dry out autumn leaves, gather branches, make little paper objects. Use construction paper and paste to make pilgrims and turkeys. Use old giveaway clothes and cut them into matching squares and hem them for matching cloth napkins, and make matching napkin rings or holders. Teach proper place settings for silverware even if it is old, mismatched and/or plastic: you can still train high-class manners. The dollar Store has dollar stemware: I bought one for each of my children and we drank diet cola out of them. Too classy for words. Make woven placemats, or find some in church thrift sales. Church rummage sales are great places to get everything you could ever need for holidays because a lot of people give away quality items for these sales rarely used. Wait till the last day of the sale when they do dollar a bag, and then think ahead. These sales are often in September. You can create beautiful real holiday tables completely for a dollar or maybe two, by thinking about what you will need and making a mad grab for it: placemats, silver, serving dishes, cookers, stemware, decorations etc. throw em all in.
5. Read the Bible: never leave it out: have each child choose a favorite passage.
6. Got a guitar or piano? Sing out loud, all you want, its your house nobody can stop you. No instrument? Save shoeboxes and string rubber bands or use combs with wax paper for a “ReallyPoor” kazoo.
7. Thanksgiving is about thanks to God first, and the people in your life. Use the day to mend relations, to see aging aunts or mothers, or grandparents.
8. Spend just pennies and buy one sweet dessert you normally cannot afford, or make one. Jello and cool whip if nothing else. Make the day special. Dress up for dinner. Fix your little girl’s hair in a special way; make your little boy a newspaper hat: anything to liven up the mood.
Now take a look at the above: what will you possibly miss on Thanksgiving? You’ve got the meal, the dressings, the special times and events, parades, love and laughter, and terrific memories. You spend almost nothing. You save as much as $200.00, and if you think this is an overestimate, go price 22lb turkeys, all the ingredients for side dishes, specially made floral centerpieces, dinnerware etc and with a little ingenuity, you’ve created a memory at least as good. In all things give thanks. Nothing is impossible with God. Gotta go check the turkey.
ekb-reallypoor.
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