It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is just a couple days away. It used to be the “official start” of the holiday season. Now it seems to be just a nice day off from work between Halloween and Christmas. The start of the holiday season commercially began in August this year … that’s when I saw the first Christmas commercials and the sprouting of Christmas decorations for sale in stores and online.
Of course, the Thanksgiving Holiday doesn’t benefit many commercially, unlike Halloween which seems to get bigger every year and Christmas. We buy a little more food for one day, but that’s about it. Thanksgiving just doesn’t bring in much coin or currency.
Yet of all the holidays we experience during the year, I think Thanksgiving is my favorite. It was always the one where I could count on family being together. There was the meal, and some football, and a couple rousing rounds of Trivial Pursuit. It hasn’t been like that for a few years now. This year it will be my daughter and son-in-law and dinner brought in from Cracker Barrel. The boys, spouses and grandchildren will be with others or in other places, and I will once again miss what used to be.
Still Thanksgiving is a special holiday to me. It reminds me that I should be grateful, and that thanksgiving is for more than just one day a year—it needs to be a way of life. Thanksgiving is the gift we bring when we enter God’s presence.
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” [Ps 100:4-5]
