Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving America

I do think that this is one holiday that America gets right, this thanksgiving thing.

It's in the winter season yet there is no mad rush to purchase gifts. There are no Thanksgiving parties to attend or office parties where people get drunk and do things they will regret for the rest of the year. There are no Thanksgiving pageants or special outfits. No candy or special plants to decorate. It's about gratitude, which is always good to be reminded to celebrate.

It's celebrated with food, usually around tables with friends and family, and it's not really hard to think about things to be grateful for.

Kinda like Christmas but without all the fanfare and months of mad prep work.

Yet.

I mean, there is a huge parade, and people can be excessive with the food. Oh, and the team sports can get in the way. Football I mean. (I checked todays games and they look kinda lean. Which I suppose, is something for some people to be thankful for too.) And there is Black Friday which is called that for a reason. The biggest shopping orgy the American public enters into each year, to prepare for The Holiday of the year, Christmas.


But on this day when India is burning, and the financial markets continue a downward spiral, when people are loosing their homes and food costs more, and people are sick and hurting, maybe there are still things to be thankful for.

Though it isn't good to be thankful that we are not like them, caught in their pain and loss, it is good that we pray for them at our tables and gatherings.

No, maybe there are things that we ourselves can be thankful for. In an odd twist of reality, it's sometimes the people of the world who have the least who are the most grateful. Those of us who have much can find ourselves jaded by the smallest pain and become thankless individuals.


It's good to remember to be thankful especially in such a blessed country.
It's good to stop and think and remember and to be thankful.


So wherever you find yourselves living these days, it's a good idea to remember to be thankful, for some grace in your life.



On this one I think we can take our cues from the Americans.

2 comments:

  1. All excellent things to be thankful for.

    But somehow I'm usually more thankful in the balmy days of early October when we Canadians celebrate our Thanksgiving than at this time of the year when we're surrounded by ice and snow.

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  2. The out of office reply I received this afternoon said "happy turkey day".

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