Turkey day hasn’t been much of a holiday in my family ever. Sure, we get together with loved ones and have a meal, but that isn’t really something that couldn’t happen any other day of the year. I suppose there’s a bit of the commercialist in me who doesn’t recognize it as a holiday without a mascot. I don’t want to believe that is real, but there is some truth to that. In fact, the sales for black friday start at 6pm on thursday, further proving the lack of any real investment in that holiday for the corporate side of our nation. I say all this in order to say that I am ready to start believing in Thanksgiving, not as a historical event but as an opportunity to give thanks.
Its hard enough to get a kid to say thank you, let alone compel them to say what they are thankful for. Yet here I am trying to spin up that activity tomorrow. I feel like the kids will be able to attach to it quickly. I feel like they don’t actually know what they are supposed to do with turkey day, especially after the divorce.
What I want to do is to take some time for them to reflect the way I want to reflect. In other words I want to spend a few minutes thinking about all the things we are thankful for and perhaps writing them down and talking about those things for a bit as a reminder of what kind of world we live in. It is also a reminder of how fortunate we all are to 1) be given life at all 2) to be given life in a country where you are able to speak your mind without getting shot (usually).
Some Thoughts
- That wound up being far more rambling than I intended…