Holiday time or Holy-Day time? Each holiday season, I wonder what time people are really celebrating. Christmas becomes X-Mass. Holy-days become holidays. Days of remembrance become good days to host a backyard barbecue and Thanksgiving simply becomes the springboard to “the shopping season.” The big kickoff being “Black Friday.” Where is our soul? Where is the spirit in our natures? Is time off meant to be simply another day to watch the “big game.” Are holy-days meant to be spent shopping? Is Black Friday now the most important day of the year? Is Santa Claus a Good Christian because he gives toys to tots? Was that Jesus Christ’s message, to spend Christmas roasting chestnuts round an open fire singing Jingle Bell Rock?
Please note, it is not my intention to sound like the Grinch or to “cast stones” at others. We all need time to relax and we all need time for fun and games. However, when do we say enough? What about the meaning of the time that we are granted? Do we simply see our time off as a holiday or do we embrace this gift of time to remember our dead, our veterans, our special leaders and those that helped pave the way for the lives that we can live today. These “holidays” we are given each year, whether in remembrance of a religious or civic event should not pass by without our taking the time to remember what their true meaning is.
Thanksgiving in my opinion is meant as a time to remember the blessings that we have been given. Regardless of how much or how little we have, there is generally something we can be grateful for in our lives.
I have so much but I am continually looking at people that are more successful, make more money, have more friends and are in better condition. Yet once I pause for just a few seconds to reflect on my blessings, I realize that I have the greatest wife in the world and I am healthy and moderately well off. I have six happy and wonderful grandchildren. I have more friends than I have time to spend with. In short, I have nothing to complain about. I have nothing to be selfish or greedy or jealous about. I have been blessed with a wonderful life and yet I hardly ever stop to say “thank you God for what you have given me.” I am usually too worried about what I have not been given.
This Thanksgiving, take the time to say a prayer of thanks. Ask all present to thank God or whomever or whatever you believe in for the gifts and the life you are living. This year, I will also ask all present at my Thanksgiving table to take a minute to express what they are thankful for in their lives; then we will dive in on the turkey, stuffing, and dressing.
The true meaning of Thanksgiving lies in being grateful for what you have.
Time for Questions:
Do you know a prayer of thanks? What is your favorite prayer? Will you make time for a prayer of gratitude this Thanksgiving?
Life is just beginning.
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. — Melody Beattie
Aging Capriciously 
Nov 25, 2015 @ 22:04:44
Last Thanksgiving at our house we had an impromptu dance party after the meal, with all the old and young kids. I suppose the same will happen this year. It’s a great time of family bonding, and I think we’re looking forward to it again. At the table we go around with what we’re individually thankful for: another family bond-maker.
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Nov 29, 2015 @ 16:38:10
Tom, thanks for sharing the experience. Sounds like a fun and rewarding time.
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Nov 28, 2015 @ 01:00:10
I loved your blog. I have tried to remember to give thanks for all my gifts on a daily basis since reading a mug, 5 days ago, that read, “What IF you woke up tomorrow and only had the things you thanked God for yesterday”.
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Nov 29, 2015 @ 16:35:35
Thanks Jeanine. Interesting thought on the mug.
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Nov 28, 2015 @ 22:04:43
Thank you for the reminder. But remember gratitude seldom fosters revolution but it encourage complacency.
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Nov 29, 2015 @ 16:37:16
Hi Greg, interesting thought. I will need to mull it over some. Just watching a documentary on the sixties on Netflix called “The day the sixties ended.” You would enjoy it.
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Dec 01, 2019 @ 21:59:26
I know this is an older blog, but the message is timeless. I cannot remember a Thanksgiving where grace was not said, and that would go for Christmas and Easter dinners as well. Your blog is a good reminder to remember the days that have been set aside for the purpose they were intended. Good blog!!
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Dec 02, 2019 @ 08:30:14
Thanks Jeanine. Some things need repeating and repeating.
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Nov 26, 2023 @ 16:18:07
Good blog as the message never gets
old, we need to be forever grateful for all the gifts we have been given, both big and small. This past year both my daughter, and her husband, as well as my own spouse and I, have decided that saying grace should not be reserved for only holiday meals, but daily as well. Jennifer even purchased her own prayer cube .as she loved a prayer cube I brought home from vacation 6 years ago. One side has a blessing my late mother in law would always say at the table, and this Thanksgiving day, with her in mind ,and much to our delight, with a roll of that six sided cube , there it was, “God is great, God is good, let us be thankful for this food, Amen”.
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Nov 27, 2023 @ 08:43:20
I think grace at every meal and being thankful and mindful of what we have is important. There are many good books full of graces from other countries, religions and cultures. It is fun using one to do a different grace each day. Thanks for the comment Jeanine.
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