So I’m wrapping up work and sitting down to go over my recipes and break them down into a shopping list; we’ll start brining the turkey and figuring out how to tidy the downstairs next.

Tomorrow afternoon, we’ll have my mom, my brother and his wife, our son Littlest Guy, and our friends Norm and Jill and an orphan or two. Middle Guy and his mom will drop by, and we’ll wind up the day in a food, conversation, game, and alcohol haze.

That’s the basics of the event, but it doesn’t say much about what it means.

Tomorrow’s a day when we’re supposed to be grateful, which always sounds kind of schoolmarmish – aren’t we supposed to be grateful every day? But – like Veteran’s Day which is a day when we get reminded about something, I’m happy to set the day aside.

Like many but not all in America and the world, we’ve been blessed this year.

We have a lovely home – and we’re current on the mortgage.

We have great neighbors.

I’m somehow, amazingly, luckily married to a someone wonderful.

Both TG and I are blessed with work. Interesting work, and more than we can really handle. So is Middle Guy, now that I think of it.

And the boys.

Biggest Guy is home from Afghanistan, hale, whole, and amazingly hearty. That’s many parents’ dream, and one that I know not all parents got this year.

Middle Guy is a year and a half out of college, and he’s more than self-sufficent – he’s found work and a life he seems to love. Every parent’s dream – and again, I know one that not every parent gets.

Littlest Guy is meeting the challenges of teenagerhood, and if we don’t brick him into a wall, is going to turn out just great.

We live in a world full of challenges right now. And for me, I think that’s a blessing too. We are all going to be challenged to see what we can do in the coming year, and I’m grateful for that…and worried, and hopeful, and scared.

C.J. Grisham posed something that hit me. As I said on Facebook, I’m not religious, but really felt the power of this paragraph:

Thanksgiving therefore is an affirmation of one’s relationship to God and not to things or to however well things are going, nor even to His blessings. Thanksgiving is a duty but not one that is negative or coerced. It is a voluntary expression of love and loyalty to God and His great project called Life. People do it, and Nations do it. Moreover, it is always the right thing to do, even when there’s not a lot that’s obvious to be thankful for.

Yes it is. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and thank you to the folks who write, comment, and visit here.
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