Thanksgiving

Before I get started, if you’ve never seen the film, “Home for the Holidays”, starring Holly Hunter, watch it tonight, after you’ve eaten and family and friends have departed.  It is for Thanksgiving, what, “A Christmas Story” has become for Christmas.

Directed by Jodie Foster and coming out in the 1990’s it has a wonderful cast including Robert Downey Jr., Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning, not to mention Dylan McDermott, Claine Danes and Steve Guttenberg.  There’s nothing about the movie not to like.  My wife and I have a tradition of watching it every Thanksgiving’s eve.  It is funny and touching and well acted.

So, what I have to say about Thanksgiving is this.  Hopefully, like St. Valentine’s Day for lovers, we shouldn’t need a, “day” to remind us how thankful we are and should always be.  And even though the modern era of Thanksgiving has morphed into a feeding frenzy with football overtures, we must start and end each day remembering how fortunate we are, no matter what we have to complain about.

There are so many people much worse off than we are.  Let’s remember to each dedicate ourselves to a cause this year to help those less fortunate than us.  If each of us does just one thing to help one person, we’ve made the world a better place.  I realize that sounds corny, but true and good things usually are.

This is the first Thanksgiving in memory that we’re not spending the day in the kitchen all day, either preparing or eating or cleaning up.  We’ve opted to spend the day at Longwood Gardens followed by dinner at a nice restaurant, sans family and friends.  They can have us the other 364 days of the year.

Here’s hoping your turkey day is memorable, free of arguments and burnt carcasses, and please, please wait at least until 8 am on Friday to venture out shopping.  And make the world a better place by venturing out into the world to purchase a gift or two, instead of sitting at a desk and clicking a button.  Interact with the world and don’t use the self-checkout aisle.

Even though many of our fellow men and women can sometimes be irritating, it’s important, especially at this time of the year, that we interact with them.

Be safe, be full and be warm, and give thanks that you can be all three of those things.  And let’s help a few others achieve that as well.