Feast Day

Today was the big Thanksgiving feast for the first graders. I responded to the ancient call of motherly guilt and volunteered to help. This is when I really miss my old job when I was busy at work all day. I don't think I'm cut out to work with large groups of first graders. Lucy's teacher roped me into helping on the applesauce team. I was encouraged to see another older looking mom there--until I realized she was actually a grandma.

My usual tool for working with apples is my Chicago Cutlery knife that my mom bought me for my first apartment in 1991. I haven't sharpened it since, and it works great. Today there was some amazing contraption that could, when working correctly, peel, core, and slice apples. The key phrase there is "when working correctly." My job was to secure the apple to this lethal-looking three-pronged spear, position the core ring correctly and keep it in place, and hold down the entire instrument while each uncoordinated first grader took a turn turning the crank, simultaneously spraying all of us with apple juice. I'm surprised none of us lost any of our digits, and I really want to be off the roads when some of these first graders are old enough to get their license. I did discover that the key to getting boys to help in the kitchen is to have some deadly tool at their disposal with which to work.

We completed that task while another team helped the kids make cornbread. In between they decorated their pilgrim and Indian costumes while dancing around and doing politically incorrect war whoops.

Finally, we were ready:



There was turkey; cornbread; corn; the aforementioned applesauce, fortunately sans blood and any fingertips as least as far as I could tell; and pumpkin pie with whipped cream.



Here is Lucy's first grade class...



I may be slightly biased, but here is the cutest little pilgrim ever...



As they were finishing their feast, the Thanksgiving Turkey came to visit...



I also took the time to observe the art and writing projects hanging up outside of Lucy's classroom. They had all made pilgrims and then written about them. My favorite pilgrim woman had foundation, blush, lipstick, and mascara because you know we would have been nowhere in the New World without those.

It appeared that the writing assignment was to describe the pilgrims. I read everyone's essay, and each one was a sentence or two about what color clothes the pilgrims wore. The kids did a nice job.

Then I saw this one:



The spelling needs a little work, so I will translate: "I like Pilgrims! They are very nice. Pilgrims are sensible and they put their special things in the box and they did not complain like the Israelites but they did work a lot." Lucy

All I can say, my girl has got stuff on her mind, and she needs to put it down on paper. She might need some help with run-on sentences, but fortunately she has an editor.

So concludes Feast Day 2009--everyone's full of great food, no first graders were harmed in the process, and the Pilgrims were sensible enough to work hard and wear lipstick--all things to be thankful for.