In an ideal world, Thanksgiving would be a redundant holiday.
I mean sure, people came up with it to celebrate Pilgrims and Native Americans sharing food and shelter (and disease) and stuff, but today Thanksgiving is viewed as the holiday where we remember and acknowledge the things we have been blessed with (and does anyone really still give thanks for the Pilgrims and stuff anymore?).
In all honesty, however, I feel like most of what the spirit of this holiday encapsulates can be carried out in the day-to-day. It doesn’t take something extraordinary to recognize all the good things we have in life- it’s actually pretty easy to do many of the things we reserve for Thanksgiving every day. Like being glad for life itself every new morning. Like showing our gratitude for the possessions and people around us. Appreciating of our situations, no matter what that situation happens to be. Taking nothing for granted.
Giving thanks.
…I tell myself I should be doing these sorts of things, anyway.
The reality is that I don’t appreciate my friends, my family, my circumstances, etc. nearly as much as I should. That I am, by nature, selfish enough that giving thanks requires conscious effort- and that I’m not alone in this. That, silly as it seems, Thanksgiving might actually be somewhat of a necessity, allowing us to keep the proper perspective on life at least one day out of the year.
Yeah, it’s kind of sad that this sort of thing doesn’t happen every day of the year. But then shouldn’t we be all the more grateful that we have a day dedicated to giving thanks? Shouldn’t we take full advantage of these rare times set apart not only to remember but to celebrate the things we have?
Today we can.
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Now playing: Clara C – Offbeat
via FoxyTunes
Posted by bmwong 
