Showing posts with label family Thanksgiving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family Thanksgiving. Show all posts

Thursday, November 27, 2025

Thanksgiving 1984

Giving thanks means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Sometimes I wonder if it might help if we were to whittle that down to one or two specifics, simply to emphacize what we really should be thankful for. You know, find something small and specific as an illustration of a broader point.

We might say as a general point that we are thankful for family. That's a good thing, right? Yet how about a concrete example of that? For me, one such example is Thanksgiving 1984.

There were only just the three of us in the immediate family at the time. We had Thanksgiving Dinner at Nana and Paw Paw's, and waddled down the block home in the late afternoon, an hour or so before dark. There had been about a two inch snowfall, enough so everything was covered in a nice and clean white blanket. We went into the backyard to play in the snow a bit before actually going inside.

My wife and I began tossing snow up in the air, and Charlie followed suit as best an almost two year old could, all of us laughing and giggling as we watched the spray dissipate. Then we found a slat from an old picket fence and I made a snowball, while Gail took the piece of fence and held it like a bat in Charlie's hands. I pitched the snowball gently; Charlie 'swung' mightily with his mother's help. The ball exploded when hit, and all three of us laughed out loud. Charlie laughed especially hard, as only small children can laugh, without holding back, in a more free spirited manner than us adults. We did it again and again, several times over, each time cackling madly when the snowball vanished in a spray of white. We did it, I don't know how many times. But each time was a laugh riot. It's a memory that even then, forty one years ago now, I knew I would never forget.

It's a prime example of being thankful for family. You'll hear more from me involving everyone else in the family as time goes on. But this being Thanksgiving, I felt it a good place to start.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.



Thursday, November 28, 2024

Thanksgiving 2024

It doesn't have to be perfect. Indeed, it can be quite flawed and still be a good holiday. The food doesn't have to be fit for, well, the Food Network. The house doesn't need to be set for, well again, House Beautiful. I would go so far as to say that if any holiday can past muster if all is simply okay, Thanksgiving is it.

Of course, I mean that in the sense of the trappings (the trappings being the least important part of any holiday). But the point of the day, to remember all the good things which we have and, Lord willing, shall continue to have, that's the idea. Be thankful. Thankful for friends and family. Thankful for the roof over your head. Thankful, yes, for the food and festivity. All those things are little perfects which, left to themselves and seen by themselves, will allow you to have a very good day. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

For those who might like a more serious or somber look at what makes Thanksgiving important, and why we should guard its origins zealously, click here: 400 Years of Thanksgiving