We are blessed in so many ways. Consider hosting a joyous celebration expressing thanks for everything the Lord does to make autumn beautiful and bountiful. Gratitude is one of the strongest forces known. Recent studies show that people who keep a gratitude journal are happier, healthier, have more energy, reach more goals and sleep better than those who don’t. What aspects of your life bring you joy? Family, friends, church, art, music, literature, science, nature, beauty, knowledge, service? During this season we also remember family members who have gone before. The French celebrate All Saints’ Day, called La Toussaint, and with it honor their dead.
Sonia Smith, who is from France, describes the commemoration: “La Toussaint is a national holiday, the children get one week vacation. People go to the cemetery to put flowers on the tombs. Almost everyone does it, if they don’t go on the 1st of November, they go a few days before. In Alsace (the east of France), where I come from, after being at the cemetery, we buy grilled chestnuts (Marrons chauds) and eat them on the way home. In autumn, in Alsace, we harvest the grapes because we have many vineyards. In October we gather with family and friends and we have a special meal which consists of walnuts, grapes, multigrain bread or farmers bread, double smoked bacon and fresh grape juice.”
She describes a gathering, “The favorite game to play at parties is, I’d say, ‘Les chaises musicales’. You put, for example, 10 chairs in the middle of a room and 11 people turning around them with some music of course. When the music stops the people have to find a seat and one won’t. Then you take 1 chair away and start the music again and do so until there is only one person. Now, games we loved to play are Scrabble but you have this also in English. We also loved to play Monopoly or Les Petits Chevaux (in German: Mensch Aergere Dich Nicht) It’s a game with little horses and …dice. We loved to play this game with grandma.”
Take it from the French and host a fun and classy event. For recipes and activities, download your
You are cordially invited to join us for a TalkWorthy broadcast of joy de vive on BYU Sirius Radio 143,
October 31st at 3 p.m. Eastern