BOTH!
First we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving outside in the
Amphitheatre and carved up some delicious steak with all the trimmings (steak trimming that is). :) There was no poultry to be found anywhere which quite honestly was fine as it was the best steak ever!!! Our Canadian group had a great time of fellowship and all agreed we have a lot to be thankful for in our lives…
Jesse & John Barbecuing (Braii) Carving…
… 2 choices of dessert (bars) :)
Patriotic Moment…
16 Canadians (Debra not in picture)
Secondly, we celebrated American Thanksgiving in our dining room at Appelsbosch. For the most part Thanksgiving is celebrated by Canadians and Americans, so the Americans very graciously invited the whole crew and called it ‘International Day of Thanksgiving.’ It was a much more traditional meal and there was turkey that was carved by the chef (Jesse at the end of the Canadian Thanksgiving table). There was all the trimmings including pumpkin pie and apple crisp….yum, yum it was delicous….
Catherine on the left (chaplaincy)decorated the dining room for dinner. Roses (dining room manager (right) along with others helped. The table runners were made by the Academy Art students.
Yummy, just look at that Table above filled with final plate of scrumptious food Angel to Mortal gifts
As you can see we are all taking advantage of being able to use candles – ahhhhhhh!
American Thanksgiving fell on a couple of other celebrations that we were having…they all were relative to Thanksgiving and added a Thankful dimension to the day.
For 2 weeks everyone at Appelsbosch was an Angel and a Mortal. It basically worked like this: you put your name in a hat and pulled out another name. The name you pull out is your Mortal and you are their Angel – get it? Everyday for 2 weeks you give something to your Mortal to let them know they are special and you are thinking of them. Now the thing is, you don’t know who your angel is so all of this is being done on the sly and you get to ask other people to deliver or sneak around yourself to stay anonymous. It was a ton of fun and honestly really, really nice to know someone is thinking about you specifically and what you might like…in addition of course to being prayed for over and over again by an angel - imagine…! :) At dinner on American (International) Thanksgiving we revealed who the Angels were and gave our last gifts to our Mortals. Coincidently, my mortal was also my angel; I love the irony of that and I don’t think anyone else’s Angel was also their Mortal! Some of the things we did for each other was to give scripture verses nicely done on the computer or with special penmanship, had people sing to us, give thoughtful little gifts of wine, or tea, or pop, and yes, of course chocolate, candles (since we can use them at Appelsbosch – it’s been such a treat to have candellight at night), flowers etc. Most sentiments came with a little note…
And just to top of the day, we in the Academy had our monthly ‘Spirit Day’ and the theme this month was ‘Holiday.’ One could dress up as any type of Holiday or as something that represents the holiday. We invited the entire Appelsbosch Crew to join along with us. I was an Angel …:) 
Yes! That is a halo on my head…hee, hee, hee!
So we all had a super nice and memorable ‘International Thanksgiving!” 
Apparently, we all felt very blessed as you can see by the amount of leaves (cross pollinated, ha, ha) on the branches of the Thankful tree!
I never forgot for a moment how thankful I am for each of you in my life and thanked God for you (twice)! LOL
I pray that God gave each of you Blessings through the year that you could count and be thankful for!
Your blessings more,
And may nothing but happiness
Come through your door.
Mag God Saam Met Jou Wees! (May God be with you)
Love as always,
Carol XOX
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