We're Thankful For This Food (Table Blessing #1)

My partner and I have a long tradition of taking a moment to express our gratitude and thankfulness before our meals, going back to our first date.  (After that very first conversation about thankfulness, he leaned over and said, "Did we just pray?")  When we became parents, we wanted to continue our tradition of expressing gratitude with our son once he started to eat at the table with us.  However, instead of our usual free-flow thanksgiving conversation, we hoped to "ritualize" it a bit and have a blessing we could say every night.  It is our desire that our son would hear this "prayer" and associate with our meal, thus beginning to understand that taking time to being grateful for our many blessings is an essential part of our time together.  So I composed these words, simple and easy for us to memorize.  Later, while dining at the house of some friends, we heard their sung prayer and saw how eagerly their daughter looked forward to holding hands and singing before their meal.  I started to think of tunes to put with our blessing.  I tried to come up with an original melody, before I realized that it fit perfectly with "The Farmer in the Dell".  Our son, at 13 months, is starting to look to us as we place him in his high chair, ready to sing our song of thanksgiving before we eat.  It's such a joy to see him beginning to understand.

We're Thankful For This Food (Table Blessing #1)
Tune: THE FARMER IN THE DELL

We're thankful for the food,
And thankful for this day,
For our friends and family,
And for our work and play.


Copyright © 2012 by Rachel Frey. All rights reserved.