White Thanksgiving

All I can say is wow, wow, WOW! No, actually I have a lot more to say than that…

Although I’ve wished many times for a white Christmas, I can’t say I’ve ever dreamed of a white Thanksgiving! But it looks like that’s what we’re having! I guess it’s not actually Thanksgiving day yet, but here we’re celebrating as a church today with a meal in the evening together, so it seems like Thanksgiving day. Yesterday I went to Cheryl’s because we are decorating and making desserts and we wanted to prepare a little. It was fairly warm out, and if it hadn’t been raining I might have just layered up and not taken my puffy coat. Little rivulets of rainwater were traveling down the road, and I was marveling at the beauty of raindrops hanging on the branches like delicate Christmas ornaments.

So when I go there, Cheryl started looked up verses in Ukrainian for us to write on decorative cards for the tables and I slopped and spattered my way around the kitchen making pumpkin pie. Apparently they don’t make or eat pumpkin pie in Ukraine, although they do plenty of other creative things with that fascinating and versatile vegetable. But pumpkin pie a necessary symbol of Thanksgiving, and I was glad to get to make it.

But enough about pie…

After finishing the pie, verse cards, supper, and some good fellowship, we left around 8, I to go home and Cheryl to go to worship practice. When we stepped out the door, there was WHITE STUFF FALLING!!! I was in shock, I guess. I’m surprised that I was so surprised, but I was surprisingly very surprised and giddy. You would have thought I’d been in the tropics all my life! “It’s snowing” I kept saying, as if it wasn’t obvious. “Cheryl, it’s on the ground!” Not were the furry little flakes falling, they had already accumulated probably an inch on the ground. The umbrella I had borrowed and left on the porch to drip had turned over and was rapidly filling with snow.

We set out, all my senses alive to the new world. Even a little bit of snow transforms the landscape. Warm lights rested in houses coated in white. Instead of just muddy pavement, there was now slick and slush…and the mud. The ground dazzled and sparkled in the flashlight glow, and the cold soft flakes brushed my nose, teased the bit of fur on my hood, and nestled in my brown scarf. All was hushed and still like a wintery postcard picture. Snow caps on fence posts reminded me of Charles Wysocki paintings. I was in awe. When Cheryl and I parted ways at my street, I was so full I half cried, half laughed. My heart is so full of Thanksgiving to the Lord for what He’s done. I feel so far short of the life I desire to live in Him, but He has given me so, so much. He makes us as clean and new as new fallen snow. He changes our eyes to have the sight of faith, the sight of a new world.

When I came into the house , the family was gathered in the living room playing Pictionary. I was still giddy, and in celebration I had another cup of coffee and sat on the couch watching our budding artists draw their pictures. And tried to guess…

This morning we woke to more snow (I’m guessing 2-3 inches) on the ground a outlining the forest trees. Now it’s stopped, but the view from my window is Rzhishchiv, Thanksgiving, coated in white :) That gets a little confusing where the Christmas carol urge comes in!