Every year for Thanksgiving the altar guild of our church displays a large cornucopia filled with real fruit, nuts, pumpkins and pine cones on the altar. It truly is a work of art. Traditionally, the cornucopia was known as a horn of plenty because it was made using a goat’s horn filled with fruits, meats, and flowers. A cornucopia is a symbol of a plentiful harvest or an abundance of good things. While most of us do not actually work on farms or harvest crops, we can still grasp the concept of what a bountiful harvest looks like by tending gardens or fruit trees. Having spent the majority of years on a working farm with crops and animals, I have known gratitude when there was bountiful harvest however I have also experienced the difficulty of a less then plentiful bounty of the crops that were planted with such hopefulness. Even when times were tough, this holiday reminded us to be thankful because we always had enough food, clothes, shoes and most of all we celebrated family. |