I so wanted to come up with a deep, spiritual post for the letter Y. Not because Y is particularly spiritual, but because I was told Sunday that my posts are "light and humorous" compared to my hubby's "serious" posts on Facebook. *sigh*

The funny thing? Face to face, hubby is the light and humorous one, and I'm perpetually serious (read: bland). Or that's how it seems, anyway. Perhaps our alter egos appear when we're online?vThat said, my "Y" post for this week's a2z4u and me meme is about yams. Yep, yams.


My momma is from Kentucky. And I don't just mean she lived there for awhile when she was little. After doing some genealogical research this year, I learned that my ancestors were in Kentucky when no other white folk were there, just Indians. Apparently, they liked the wilderness, as Kentucky was then considered.

This, perhaps, explains my fondness for horse racing, mint juleps, and my ability to make really good biscuits. Or perhaps not. Whatever. Anyway, one of our Thanksgiving staple side dishes when I was growing up was candied yams. I thought everyone ate candied yams for Thanksgiving (and Christmas).

Candied Yams (my mom's version)

• Large-size can of yams (or more, depending on how many are coming for dinner)
• Butter (real butter, of course)
• Brown sugar (lots)
• Bag of miniature marshmallows 

Empty yams into a casserole dish, liberally sprinkle with brown sugar and chunks of butter, then top with marshmallows. Bake at approximately (this was never quite clarified) 350 degrees for about 1/2 hour. Or so. The best round I ever had was the year I baked them without the marshmallows, then added the marshmallows and broiled for a couple minutes. Yummy.

Anybody else have a collection of charmingly non-specific family recipes? You know, the ones with direction that include random measurements, times and temperatures?

Our first Thanksgiving dinner as parents was spent at home, because our 7-month-old daughter awoke with her first bout of stomach flu. (Yes, we stayed home. In later years with additional children, we headed for grandma's anyway. She was less distressed by vomit than I was.) I sent hubby to the store for the essentials and created what I thought was a suitable Thanksgiving dinner at the last minute ... roasted chicken (they were sold out of turkeys), and mashed potatoes, and green beans, and of course, the yams. (Do you remember Visions glass cookware? It was a wedding gift.)

To my surprise, hubby was not impressed by the candied yams. Regardless, for the past 20+ years, I've made the silly things, reducing the amount every year after realizing they will only be eaten by yours truly. And by my father-in-law. (Mom and Dad stopped "doing" holidays years ago.)

I've since added other ingredients, depending on the year ... crushed pineapple, a hefty dose of Kentucky whiskey, nutmeg, cinnamon ... attempting to adjust the recipe to appeal to the masses, to no avail. I'm still the only one who eats 'em.

Now, if I make baked sweet potatoes (aka yams, out here in Colorado), or oven-baked sweet potato fries, some of my kids will eat those. This year, I don't know ... I might just forget them altogether. It seems silly to make an entire side dish just for the sake of tradition.

Which makes me wonder ... how many of our church traditions are irrelevant to the masses, to the newly saved, or to those we attempt to reach by promoting those traditions?


Do you have holiday traditions from your childhood that had to be adapted after you got married and/or had kids?

Simply saying "thank you" never seems adequate to me, whether it's saying "thank you" to God (how do you thank God enough for all that He has done and is doing?), or saying "thank you" to someone for doing a favor, serving in some capacity, giving a gift, or helping carry out my groceries.

• How do you thank a parent for their sacrifices of time, and energy, and finances to give you the very best they could offer?
• How do you thank an aunt, a cousin, an in-law, or a grandparent for showing you the meaning of unconditional love? 
• How do you thank a spouse for years of enduring your bad attitudes, morning breath, stretch marks, and late dinners?
• How do you thank a friend for unswerving loyalty, sound advice, and faithful prayers of support?
• How do you thank a soldier deployed overseas or a veteran for laying down his or her freedom for the sake of protecting yours?
• How do you thank a teacher for having faith in you and acknowledging potential you couldn't see?
• How do you thank your minister for not giving up on you when you were ready to give up on yourself?

It's easy to make lists of the things we're grateful for at this time of year. From electricity to indoor plumbing... from food in the refrigerator to a choice of outfits to wear. What I'm really thankful for, however, are people. All the people who have impacted my life in some way, shape, or form. The older I get, the more aware I am of God's intricate interweaving of individuals and families, and how incredibly grateful I am for all of you who have been, and are, a part of my life.

Thank you doesn't seem sufficient, but I offer it anyway, to all of you! Happy Thanksgiving!

"I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil - this is the gift of God."

Before railroads, the only way to get turkeys from Vermont to market in Boston was to walk them there.  And that, throughout much of the nineteenth century, is exactly what Vermonters did, including Vermonters from the northern-most parts of the state.  Townspeople put their birds of a feather together, and, accompanied by wagons with camp supplies and tons of feed grain, they escorted as many as 7,000 birds at a time all the way to Boston.  Drives of three to four thousand birds were common in the 1820s and ‘30s.  Historian Charles Morrow Wilson says that about 1,000 birds was the minimum necessary to make the150 to 350-mile trek worthwhile.  It was a long haul.  The flocks could make only ten to twelve miles a day, and at least one drover was required for each 100 birds.

Boys scattered shelled corn feed in front of the birds, so they would walk forward, while others herded from behind.  Flocks might spread out for more than a mile, ranging in width from a few feet to fifty yards.  To protect the birds’ feet on such a long hike over rough terrain and November’s frozen ground, Vermonters sometimes coated the birds’ feet with warm tar.  They lost about ten percent of the turkeys to forded rivers, fox, hungry farm families they met in route, and other perils of the journey.

Two key facts to keep in mind are: big birds, little brains.  Wherever they were when the sun set, that’s where they perched for the night.  Their collective weight shattered trees.  Occasionally, so many birds perched on a farmer’s shed or barn that the building collapsed.  They sometimes mistook the shade of a covered bridge for dusk and simply stopped.  And so the drovers would have to go in, pick them up, carry them through the bridge and into the sun, where they’d perk up again and head on their way.

The advent of railroads and then, in the 1850s and ‘60s, refrigerated box cars were the beginning of the end for the great turkey drives, but some lasted into the twentieth century.  The notion, in the twenty-first century, of driving thousands of turkeys, or even two birds on a leash, from Island Pond south all the way to Boston is charming in its absurdity.

In the early West, turkeys were trailed like cattle in "drives" to supply food where needed. One of the earliest turkey drives was over the Sierras from California to Carson City, Nevada. Hungry miners coughed up $5 apiece for the birds.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

There's a slew of materials out there for "teaching" gratitude, from journals to coloring pages. Thankful leaves on bulletin board trees, and grateful feathers on construction paper turkeys made from the shape of a child's hand are wonderful visual reminders of what we're thankful for. But annual craft projects aren't enough to generate the lifestyle of thankfulness we want our children to experience.

"Historical accounts say that for the first Thanksgiving in 1621, the pilgrims went out and killed the deer to eat and gathered food for the three-day feast.There were no worries about what groceries had what on sale. Why? Because they ate what they had and gave thanks for it.

I’m not encouraging you to stay home from the grocery store this week. I’m not encouraging you to boycott Thanksgiving grocery sales.
Instead, I’m encouraging you to take some time to remember the reason for the holiday.

 The pilgrims threw a feast like no other because they were thankful."