The Thanksgiving Day holiday celebrated with pilgrims, turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce is a unique holiday to the U.S. however, people all over the world celebrate the harvest season. At the beginning of November, the Harvest Thanksgiving is celebrated here in Belize. The children practiced in school for their parts in the program and places are decorated with stalks of sugar cane, citrus fruits and dried ears of corn.
The corn has been harvested here in the villages and this a major staple in their diets. When you are in the villages you can hear the corn mills before every meal as they grind the corn for masa to make their tortillas. The citrus is also coming ripe - the market is now full of grapefruits, oranges and limes. The Stann Creek District north of the Toledo district is home to many citrus orchards and there are trees scattered around our area as well.
Quinn, his teacher and some other people in the community helped educate us on our part in the Harvest celebration. Traditionally people bring a small part of their crops as a gift to the church in brightly decorated containers. The church then distributes it to the poor or sells it to bring in some money. Living in town with no fruit bearing trees, we did not have any "crops" to bring so our basket was filled with homemade banana muffins and cookies. We decorated our basket with flowers from around our house to make what I call our Belizean cornucopia.
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| Belizean Cornucopia |
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| The boys of Quinn's class presenting their gifts and telling what they are thankful for |
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| Girls in Quinn's class doing a Liturgical dance to Give Thanks With a Grateful Heart |
Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks to the Holy One
Give thanks because he has given
Jesus Christ his son
And now let the weak say I am strong
Let the poor say I am rich
Because of what the Lord has done for us
Give thanks
- written by Henry Smith
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