A Toast To Thanksgiving
A Toast To Thanksgiving
Whether you're cooking today, hosting a potluck meal, being just a guest and eater, or like me, baking and bringing an apple pie for dessert at someone else's dinner table, today is a day for gratitude.
It's too late for me to give you any help with the cooking. But it's not too late to give you a little help with a toast. So when your guests are seated, their wine glasses filled, and before conversation takes over the room -- raise your glass and share a few words of thanksgiving.
Here are some suggestions:
- From Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier --
Ah! On Thanksgiving day …
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before.
What moistens the lips and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?
- Want something more heroic? This is from John F. Kennedy --
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest
appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
- Feeling noble? This is from the Roman philosopher, Seneca --
Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.
- Is dinner being followed by the game? Then Erma Bombeck may be more fitting --
Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.
- Or out of respect for the main course, this anonymous but patriotic tribute --
To our national birds —
The American eagle,
The Thanksgiving turkey:
May one give us peace in all our States.
And the other a piece for all our plates.
My toast will be as it's been for the last five years -- which is to raise my glass to you for another year of inspiring me and The City Cook. Thank you. And Happy Thanksgiving!
Kate McDonough
Editor, TheCityCook.com
