Thankful

Our church has a "bread ceremony" every November where everyone brings bread that they either make or buy that has some sort of personal meaning to them.  One of the ladies at our church grew up in Brazil, so she brings a type of "cheesy bread" (can't remember the name!), another lady brought cinnamon raisin bread this year because it reminds her of her mother, and every week, I bake bread for our kids to use for their sack lunch sandwiches, so I just make a half-loaf of that and take it.

The people who brought bread then bring their loaves up to the front at the beginning of the service and tell about their significance and leave them in the front, then some people up front cut up all the bread while the minister is talking, and then everyone in the congregation files up to the front and takes a piece of bread and gets a cup of juice.  Sort of like communion, but since it's a Unitarian Church, they don't call it that.

Anyway, this year, they also wanted a child from the congregation to stand up front and say what he/she is thankful for.  They originally asked Fellan if he would do it, but he didn't want to. Marxo, however, enthusiastically volunteered to take his place and started rattling off a list of things she was thankful for.

She wrote them down on a piece of paper and then memorized it  (but took the paper up with her, just in case).

Marxo's "Thankful" speech

It says: "I'm thankful for my mom and dad because they give me food and a home.  I'm thankful for my brother because if I didn't have him I'd have no one to play with.  I'm thankful that we pay taxes so that me and my brother can go to school."

The original version of this said that she was thankful that we had money to pay for school, but we had to explain to her that everyone who owns property pays taxes and that's what pays for school.  I love that she just incorporated that right into it and didn't try to find something else to change it to.  Proud of my little socialist. ;)