Thanksgiving

And just like that we blink and it is Thanksgiving again! We have been doing our best to ignore the fact that it is next week, but let’s be honest, we need to go shopping soon and probably plan what exactly we are making! This year we are going into the holiday with so much gratitude our hearts are ready to burst! We are fully vaccinated and have had the booster, our kids are either fully vaccinated or are at least halfway there. As a means of giving back we have donated to our local Food Bank, helped collect donations for a family in need, and contributed to a can drive.

Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: It must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all. -William Faulkner

2020-2021 has been a wild ride, so much fear, so much anger, so much hope, so much joy, we have truly lived through a remarkable time in history and while we are not at the end of the pandemic, for the first time in a very, very long time, there is hope.

Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be. -Shel Silverstein

This holiday season, regardless of what you celebrate, whether you make turkey, ham, or just order in (one of our college professors always ate Indian food on Thanksgiving, she lived abroad during her youth and didn’t grow up with Thanksgiving and this reminded her of home), look back and think about what this year has taught you. Has it shown you that the path you are on needs to change, or perhaps you have decided that you will give therapy another try, or that maybe it is time to reevaluate trying a prescribed medication to help with ______________?

Be open to the possibility that things can be better, since last year kids are back at school, restaurants have opened back up, adults, teens and kids can get vaccinated, travel is possible...all the things we fervently prayed or wished for came true! Granted, we have a long way to go before we are throwing away our masks and giving up our bottles of hand sanitizer, but small steps in the right direction are worthy of celebration.

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘Thank you,’ that would suffice.
-Meister Eckhart

A little history:
Thanksgiving didn’t begin like all the cute scenes depicted for what seems like millennia. Colonists weren’t seeking friendship with Indigenous tribes, they were seeking land and resorted to barbaric means to accomplish their goals. How the lie was perpetuated and history got mixed is up to you to Google. What is fact is that Thanksgiving as a holiday of thanks was first conceptualized by President Washington in 1789, it took until 1863 for it to become a national holiday after Sarah Josepha Hale, a writer, petitioned President Lincoln to create a Thanksgiving holiday to promote unity in a nation that had been torn in two.

So consider retelling the story this year, this holiday was born out of the horrors of the Civil War as a way to unite people and that seems like an especially good reason to celebrate today. During this week and next try to find ways to show your gratitude to those in your life, a note to a teacher, a small gift to a friend, cookies to a neighbor, a phone call to someone you care about, but haven’t spoken to in awhile.

For those that have time or money, give what you can:
*Volunteer at a food bank or soup kitchen
*Volunteer to help a friend or neighbor with a task that is overwhelming them
*Give food or money to a local food bank, pantry items and peanut butter are always needed
*Invite someone who may not have a family to go home to to your table

For my part, I am almost contented just now, and very thankful. Gratitude is a divine emotion: it fills the heart, but not to bursting; it warms it, but not to fever. -Charlotte Brontë

Today and everyday we are thankful for each of you. You are our inspirations and joy. Happy Thanksgiving!
-Team SG