Pigs, Pumpkins and Popcorn

It has become a tradition in my family to celebrate in late October what I had originally called Harvest Dinner, but has since morphed into being called Fakesgiving. In some ways, I think it’s a funny name and I get that it’s supposed to be a play on words since it does essentially represent a Fake Thanksgiving in timing alone, but in other ways I’m not too happy with the name.

Our typical celebration includes going to a farm to pick apples and pumpkins and then coming home to carve our pumpkins and sitting down to a dinner with all the typical Thanksgiving fare. Not only did I LOVE the idea of going to the place where we can relate to the earth giving to us from her bounty, but also celebrate in the harvesting.

It also doesn’t hurt that by doing this in late October, my schedule is more flexible during a busy work time and none of my grown children have to worry about which house they will spend Thanksgiving in. It’s far less stressful and normally the weather is good. Top that off with more time to shop before Christmas and it’s a bonus all the way around.

This year, we had 13 people join us for Harvest Dinner and we even set things up so the two kids living the farthest away could be with us via a Google hangout. One pair even had their meal set up to eat at the same time we were. That was a sweet touch.

There just is no way to really describe what a wonderful time we had, so I’m going to post photos with a little commentary, and hopefully, you’ll get the gist.

I mentioned popcorn, but didn’t explain.

Generally, at Thanksgiving, the thought is to say Grace and maybe share one thing that you are thankful for. During Harvest Dinner, my emphasis is that you probably have more than one thing to be thankful for at any given moment, and being aware of that is a special thing. To punctuate this, we started a tradition that has been lots of fun.

I place an empty bowl in the center of the table and give everyone some unpopped corn kernels in mini muffin papers. Then, at the beginning of dinner, I explain that whenever you feel thankful for something, you should take a kernel of corn and put it into the bowl. I prefer that you let us know what you are thankful for and frequently find that others will agree and toss in their corn kernels. All throughout dinner, you hear the “plink” of corn into the bowl and the constant running thoughts of gratitude. It’s a great way to watch the blessings grow, and usually turns into some hilarious reasons to be thankful.