We can see five Thanksgiving blessings found in a white pumpkin nestled
in a blue-berried grapevine wreath.
Thanksgiving is just around the corner.
A time when our thoughts focus on family and friends
and the blessings in our lives...
When we slow down and think about our lives, we realize we can SEE
the blessings in our lives in whatever is around us.
F R E E D O M
White pumpkins and blue berries...
Represent the freedom to choose how to live our lives.
We live in a country in which we can choose a white pumpkin
instead of being required only to have an orange pumpkin.
Traditional fall colors are golds, oranges, browns, and reds,
but our freedom allows us to celebrate fall with white and blue
without fear for choosing to be different from the majority.
A B U N D A N C E
White pumpkins and blue berries...
Represent the abundance of material riches in our lives.
We have an abundance of fruits and vegetables that demonstrates our
farmers can grow more than the bare necessities of life.
Yes, our country has an abundance of crops for which to give thanks,
just as our forefathers gave thanks for their harvests.
The white pumpkin could be eaten, but will not be.
No, it is merely used to feed my soul with its beauty.
We have such abundance in our lives that we can use vegetables as art.
The pumpkin represents the personal abundance I enjoyed this year.
I was blessed with enough riches to spend money on nonessentials.
L U X U R Y O F T I M E
White pumpkins and blue berries...
Represent the luxury of time in my life.
For most of my adult life I worked in demanding full-time jobs
that required most of my waking hours, leaving me exhausted
and with little time for leisure activities.
Now I can spend time finding just the right white pumpkin
with a perfect quirky stem with multiple squiggles
to place on a grapevine wreath.
What fun positioning the blue berry vine
just so atop the grapevine wreath.
Then a few days later, more fun in adding
brown and yellow feathers around the pumpkin.
Life is so good to have the luxury of time.
L O V E O F F R I E N D S & F A M I L Y
White pumpkins and blue berries...
Represent the love of friends and family for whom the
fall arrangement was created.
We will share Thanksgiving together.
There will be five to seven of us.
Not as many as when I was growing up,
but without them, life would not be as full or meaningful.
My dear sister and her husband will help prepare
the meal and house for others joining us.
One couple has shared Thanksgiving and Christmas
with me for the past five years.
Sometimes at my house, sometimes at their house.
We've invited the good neighbor across the street
who lives alone and watches after us.
We've also invited a former colleague/boss whose
whose husband will be working all day shuttling
travelers to and fro from the airport to a hotel.
W A R M H O U S E
White pumpkins and blue berries...
Represent a warm house in which to live.
A place, a home, where fall arrangements can be made.
How grateful I am to have a warm house.
As a child in Alabama, I sometimes lived in
houses heated only by a wood-burning stove.
Which meant one side of you roasted while the other side was chilled.
You had to keep turning.
At night, you could hardly move from the weight of the quilts,
all handmade by family members.
Mornings, you shivered with chattering teeth
until you got your clothes on.
As an adult, I have also visited houses in the northeast
in the winter that were so cold.
Brrrr.....
Central heat and enough money to pay the electric bill
are true blessings!
White pumpkins and blue berries...
Represent five Thanksgiving blessings
and many more.
May your Thanksgiving be filled with
freedom, abundance, luxury of time, love of friends and family,
and in a safe, warm home.
~~~~❦~~~~
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