I’ve heard comments—from even my own family—about what a “useless” holiday Thanksgiving is and that we should just skip straight from Halloween and straight to decorating, baking, and shopping for Christmas. All I have to say is that’s not good juju. Let me explain by giving you 4 reasons to give Thanksgiving its due.
1. Thankfulness guarantees good karma. Though these people who scoff at this pause in the action to celebrate Thanksgiving may be well-meaning, they do not understand the principle of reflecting on how blessed they are before proceeding to do more celebrating plants seeds for even more blessings. Whatever you believe in—the force that has blessed you—delights in your joy of understanding that blessings are not guaranteed and are something special. Therefore, it stands to reason that one would not want to tread on the very source of this fortune. By stopping to show appreciation, you encourage that flow to continue. It is certainly worth our time.
2. Life is short and then…. Again, some want to skip Thanksgiving and go straight to Christmas, but I can’t do this in good conscious. My mom passed just about a year ago and I am reminded that we need to stop and give thanks and say “I love you” to all the people who enrich your life BEFORE you move on to the consumer-frenzy that is Christmas. Therefore, we are stopping to share quality time with our family on Thanksgiving Day. We get the chance to tell our peeps directly that we appreciate and love them. When all is said and done, it will be these memories that live on—and not that you took that time to shop for some ratty old gift that no one will remember that you bought them after all; the gift that will likely end up at the Goodwill at the end of the season. Those who love you want your time; not your gifts.
3. You can’t have too many family gatherings. I don’t know about you, but special occasions are the only time that we get to see even family members that live in the same city. Stopping our busyness to visit my aunt’s house—where everyone who comes to town stays—is always worth the time, since we get to see more family than we would ever see at Christmas. –Again, Christmas seems more of an ostentatious celebration, revolving around bringing gifts, versus simply coming to celebrate thankfulness with the family. (I think sometimes people don’t visit at Christmas because they do not have gifts for everybody or are not sure what to get and/or who will show up, so that it is hard to plan gift-giving well.)
4. Fall decorations do double duty. . By putting up more “fall-inspired”—versus strictly Halloween decorations—you can maximize the amount of time to showcase the same decorations. Pumpkins, hay, and cornstalks are all good choices for a porch-scape. Once Halloween is over, you can simply remove all the cobwebs off the bushes and leave everything up until Thanksgiving Day. —I don’t care what anyone says, I refuse to pull out the 3 Christmas trees that we put up until the day AFTER Thanksgiving. This is my way of honoring Thanksgiving.
What Are We thankful for? I am thankful for my wonderful blog-partner husband, and my good-hearted and talented children. I am thankful that we are musical and creative and colorful. I am thankful for life itself and every day I am more and more thankful for you, dear reader. You bless us by continuing to give us your time and love. That is one of the reasons that this post (and our ongoing giveaways) exist. We want to honor the virtual bond that we share with you. And we want to remind you—as we remind ourselves—that blessings like this are not to be taken lightly. They are to be appreciated and cherished.
As always, wishing you love, peace, and chicken grease. Until tomorrow...
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