Thankful For

I hope wherever you land this week, it is filled with gatherings of friends and family, and wherever you live on the carnivore/omnivore/vegetarian/pescatarian scale you enjoy way too much of every good thing come Thanksgiving. Mostly, I hope you have many reasons for which to be grateful along with opportunities to share some of your blessings with others.

I recently heard a story of a young man who got invited to a Thanksgiving feast by accident. The hostess could have turned him away, saying family only, but she welcomed the stranger to her table. Through the years they have forged the best kind of connection, through mutual love and respect. If you break bread with a stranger, I salute you. A time set aside for giving thanks should be balanced with a tradition of thankful giving.

Most of us will look around the feast table tomorrow and see blended and extended family members while missing those who are geographically distant. Too many of us will give in to the gluttony of the moment, even wearing stretchy pants if necessary. I admit, I only say no to the desserts (it helps I am not a pie fan and yes, you can add your comments of incredulity below). I am not shy about saying yes to healthy (?) helpings of every other turkey-basted and -based offering. I say yes to the gathering and the joys of a kids’ table butted up against the grown up one so we can all laugh together. I like to propose a joke fest, banning any sort of political discussion. A quick search of “clean” dad jokes is sure to keep the guests in moans and laughter, the cornier the better.

While I do enjoy the many monologues and comedy sketches about the dysfunction that becomes blaringly apparent around the shared Turkey Day table, I do not wish for a reenactment in my peaceful home. This year marks the end of an era for our family, having sold the place where we had been gathering for the past ten or so years. Bittersweet sums up the change of venue, but new traditions will infuse the new place with the love and warmth we have come to expect. While we will miss the day-after shopping excursion, we will rejoice in an all-day Christmas cookie bake-off (they freeze well), wearing our jammies, drinking nog and listening to Holiday music or movies on repeat.

There is so much to be thankful for. The trick is to focus on thanks and forget about the gripes. Just for the day. As I ran errands this week, I was struck by how often I received sincere wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving. No agenda or persuasion added, just a sharing of good will from one stranger to another. This neutral holiday nears the top of my list of things for which I am grateful. How about you? If you were challenged to name 100 gratitudes, could you do it? Wouldn’t that be a fun diversion at the dinner table, a round of brainstorming to see how many you could name? It might just be a way to crowd out the gripes and differences. Let me know if you give it a try. And Happy Thanksgiving.