November 24, 2022, Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving according to Wikipedia is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Liberia. It began as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year. Similarly named festival holidays occur in Germany and Japan. Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and around the same part of the year in other places. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday.

Although for most of us a blessing of the harvest is lost, as there are very few local farms or home gardens. We primarily get our consumables at a grocery store of some sort or another. But we can certainly give thanks for the preceding year, and the fact that hopefully as you read this have food on the table. For most long forgotten are those religous and cultural traditions and new more modern ones adopted. After all who wants to HAVE to go shoot a turkey for dinner? Over the years some of our annual rituals have changed, some completely gone others morphed to accommodate changing family structures and cultural normalities. Whatever the case, its a time to gather and celebrate with the ones we love and to remember those no longer with us.

For our family growing up, it was a time of gathering. When all the family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and that one weird family member that no-one really wants around. If you do not know who that is in your family, it is you. I myself was always the black sheep, on both sides of the family tree. Those days are long past and many of the older generation have passed on. We are the older generation now. Times are changing and so are many of the holiday customs and traditions. Making memories and passing on the torches to those who will keep us alive long after we, to pass. For now, we embrace each day, and those we love the most and we are thankful.

I have very fond memories of this time of year. We would visit both Grandparents house and see all the cousins and distant relatives that only came on special occasions. Watching the holiday movies on TV, football in the park sneaking off to smoke a joint in the woods thinking no one knew, they did. Then driving around in a caravan of cars to look at the Christmas light displays. Too bad we didn’t realize back then that those actually were the good ole’ days. Now we help the next in line to have their good ole’ days and pass on what traditions and recopies we can to ensure when they reach our place in their lives, they too will have a tear-filled eye as they watch their grandchildren having their good ole’ days.

Times change, as do people and so the ways in which we gather and celebrate. Families aren’t a formula, and each is unique in its structure. Family is not always blood, and blood is not always family. Our family is no exception, we have gained some and lost some but we stick together and take care of each other. That’s what families do, and we like the rest of those who celebrate a day of thanks will gather with our families for a feast to usher in the all to familiar bells of…Christmas!

This is the time of year to be thankful for all that we have, no matter how small. There is always someone in much more Dire straits than the ones you now navigate. Find in your heart something for which to be thankful, after all you are reading this. This in fact means that you awoke this day and are still above the dirt. That is a thing to be Thankful for if nothing else. Every day is another chance to start over and move forward. For most of us, here in the United States this is family time. Whatever that may be for you and yours, make it the best it can be. The year is winding down, and a new one is almost upon us. Be Thankful for what you have and hopeful that the future is prosperous and bright. Then go put up that Christmas tree!

Thank you for reading

I appreciate you and wish you a wonderful Day of Giving Thanks.

 

 

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