Thanksgiving...Everyday

We should take some time to remember with gratitude all that we have come through as a nation. It's also a good time to be thankful for coming through personal difficulties.

My husband and I skipped the actual day of Thanksgiving this year. We had traveled beforehand to be with one side of the family and then had a little bug on Thanksgiving Day.

We were fine with that decision because our children were scattered across the country and it would have been rather lonely at the table, just the two of us sitting, looking at the big bird together.

In the future, if our children are away, we will invite friends or maybe even strangers to join us, but this year, all things considered, skipping the day was best.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving my wonderful husband went to work on his yearly project. Spending a day smoking a couple of turkeys is one of his favorite contributions to the holidays.

It was quite chilly for a southern day, but he was able to get them done in plenty of time for us to cool and debone them, get the drippings ready for future use, store most of the meat in the freezer, and make ourselves a lovely meal to celebrate feeling better.

We enjoyed a nice, quiet candlelight dinner together while we made plans to step up our exercise program. Times of R&R are a blessing!

The interesting thing about “missing” Thanksgiving was the feeling of missing out on something bigger than a family meal. By choosing to postpone our Thanksgiving celebration we spent that Thursday feeling oddly apart from the rest of our country. It’s a special day for our nation, a day that was given to us as a gift of remembrance.

No matter what our particular traditions might be--family, football, friends--Thanksgiving Day for Americans is for remembering God’s provision to the first settler’s through the national Indians and through the bountiful crops, fish, and game.

It is a day for giving thanks for His continued provision in this country, especially for the freedom to worship. All Americans have much to be grateful for because American history is rich with evidence of God’s blessing on our nation in spite of the fact that we have often ignored Him and taken His mercy for granted.

Although the way it is celebrated in our day and time varies greatly from those early celebrations, the truth of why we have an American Thanksgiving Day has not changed. Revisionists have worked hard to denigrate the early settlers and the founding fathers, and they are even trying to eliminate the traditional Thanksgiving Day, but we still live in America.

Everyday should be one filled with the kind of thanksgiving that motivates us to consider our roots and hold firm to the high standards that made our country great. Everyday is a day to be thankful for our American history.

Even though our meal was on hold I did try to shop for a few last minute Thanksgiving decorations. In store after store I was given the same story. Very few Thanksgiving items were available this year.

There were plenty for Oct. 31, and Christmas has been available since August, but no one seemed to know what happened to the Thanksgiving decorations. As consumers we need to ask for next year’s Thanksgiving items now, and as Americans we need to begin talking up Thanksgiving in our neighborhoods and schools.

It’s up to us as Americans to hold on to the history behind our national holidays like Thanksgiving. It’s our job to teach our American history to new generations. We can regain some ground from those who would destroy our foundations, and we can show young people how they can do the same. We can get involved in education and elections. We can become a part of our local governments.

The question is, will we?

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