We don't live in America, of course, so I have to make extra efforts to make sure my children understand and experience Thanksgiving in the way that Americans do. That means I take them out of school on Thursday, and I even call off all homework, practicing etc. by about 6pm on the night before Thanksgiving as well. I love the night before Thanksgiving when so much of the food preparation is happening. It started this year with our turkey, as I was determined to soak it in brine overnight, so the three little girls helped me assemble the brine, which consisted of all sorts of spices and sugar and onions and oranges, etc. Here they are squeezing orange juice into the brine:
They found helping out very exciting, and I even heard comments like 'I love Thanksgiving Eve - that's what this is, isn't it, Mommy, it's Thanksgiving Eve'. And when the brine was all assembled, they peered into it and Georgiana cried 'Oh, that just looks like Christmas!'
Next we had to tackle the pastry, for the pumpkin pie and the apple pie. For this I had to drag in the teenager (that would be Abigail!),
who worked hard at the pastry, but also played hard whilst in the kitchen:
Once the pastry was done, Imogen did the filling for the pumpkin pie, which ended up being the best pumpkin pie I have ever tasted, so I was very proud:
Abigail was then put to work making dough for the dinner rolls, and Samuel agreed to do the 7-up salad and green beans:
All this activity meant that the next morning all I had to do was make the yams and apples, broccoli and cream cheese dish, cranberry sauce and gravy. We were able to sleep in on Thanksgiving morning, and had a leisurely breakfast of brioche rolls and hot chocolate. I got a surprise when Georgiana and Eleanor took it upon themselves to do their own family scripture study, an activity which normally seems to underwhelm them (what wonders a day off will do!):
Georgiana and Eleanor then helped me with the yams and apples, each claiming the right to the sole usage of the apple peeler/corer/slicer but finding it in their hearts to share it with one another anyway:
Then, miracle of miracles, everything was either done or cooking or waiting to be cooked by 11:30am, so I got my heartfelt wish of being able to visit the Guildhall in Boston on Thanksgiving!! The Guildhall is where they imprisoned the Pilgrim fathers on 23rd September 1607, for trying to escape England for religious freedom. A group of English separatists, many of whom would later become known as the Pilgrims, were determined to leave England in the early seventeenth century because they were not allowed to practice their Puritan religion and were being forced by law to attend only the Church of England, with which they did not agree. As if this was not unjust enough, it was also illegal to leave England if you were doing it on the grounds of seeking religious freedom elsewhere! So, if you were a Separatist, there was no way to follow your conscience legally.
Anyway, among the leaders in this group of separatists were two men, William Bradford, and William Brewster, who would later be among the first to sign the Mayflower Compact in 1620. In 1607, they hired a ship to take them from Boston to Holland, where they could have greater religious freedom - a brave and noble act, but one which was, at the time, illegal. They got on board the ship, put all their belongings safe below deck, but the captain would not sail the ship. Finally, the authorities showed up, arrested everyone on board, stole all their goods, and hauled them back into the town center. Everyone from the ship was imprisoned, in the Guildhall, in these cells which we got to see yesterday:
I don't know when exactly all the members of the group were released, but the leaders of the group, such as Brewster and Bradford, had to stay in the Guildhall under house arrest for at least a month to await trail, which also took place in the Guildhall, just upstairs from the cells:
The Guildhall court was a local court, and in the end Brewster and Bradford were told that because their crime was of a severe nature, they had to go to Lincoln for their case to be heard in the larger court. The locals were sympathetic to Brewster and Bradford, however, so they released them and told them to make their own way to Lincoln for their court hearing. At that, Brewster and Bradford, of course, disappeared, and spent their time planning how their group of separatists could get to Holland without getting caught, which they managed to do about a year later.
I love history; I love museums; I love old books; but I was especially moved at the Guildhall because I was overcome with the sense that I was in the same place that these great Pilgrim fathers had been, these people who had great religious convictions and were not afraid to live by them, even when it was dangerous to do so. They knew that the only way forward was to grant people religious freedom.
But Boston's connections to the Pilgrims does not stop there. There was also a man named John Coton who was the preacher in the local church in Boston, called the Stump. Although it was a Church of England church, he had Puritan sympathies, and preached according to those sympathies. About eight years after the Pilgrim fathers left, he preached a sermon in the Stump in which he basically said that he had had enough of the Church of England, and didn't feel that England was a place where he could worship according to conscience, and he was moving to the colonies and did anyone want to go with him. Most of his congregation accepted his proposal, which consisted of about the top third of the wealthiest people in the area! Here you can see in the distance the tower of the church where he preached:
These were the people who founded Boston, MA in the US.
After a thoroughly inspiring trip to Boston (hard to come by, that is), we made it back home in time to finish eveything off and eat by 3:30. We had Bishop Shami and his family, and the missionaries over, making 16 people in all at dinner:
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