I enjoy holidays. The break from work is always welcomed time with family and friends and of course great food. But holidays remind us of our history and the blessings of our present life. Thanksgiving is perhaps my favorite holiday as it seems to have stayed true to it’s roots.
There is certainly many folk who enjoy the afternoon football game, while nothing wrong with it, little is truly related to thankfulness. Black Friday follows after but that I attribute to Christmas which is so off course from it’s original intent.
Ah, but Thanksgiving, the day when no gifts are exchanged except the gift of one another and good food and drink. How splendid a holiday to stop and reflect on all the many blessings we’ve been given.
Some things I’m truly thankful for:
- My very lovely and patient wife. I’m very blessed to have her.
- Three beautiful, smart and imaginative daughters. They are working on developing a thanksgiving video which I’ll post when it’s completed.
- I have great sources of income. On a global scale I’m incredibly wealthy with *half the world living on less than two dollars a day.
- I can read. *Almost a billion people around the globe aren’t literate.
- Clean water to drink and clean air to breathe. *Over a billion people don’t have access to clean water.
- Reliable transport. Our two vehicles with a collective mileage of 300,000 are running well.
- A new home computer network that gives working from home a new meaning and competition for computer time a reprieve.
- The fresh northerner that blew in last night just in time for Thanksgiving. I love Texas weather that way. It will be back in the seventies within a week.
- Vacation days to turn an extended weekend into a Fall break.
- Great family experiences this year in the mountains of Colorado and New Mexico, at the beach along the Texas coastline and numerous jaunts through the Texas Hill Country.
This list could be ten fold, but I’ll spare you from wading through it. What are things you are thankful for?
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Hi Phil,
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanks for sharing your great list of items you are thankful for.
Blessings to you, Phil
Let’s Acquire Wisdom and Live with Passion
Great list Phil! I know I am thankful everyday for my wonderful family, as well as having the means to support them.
Enjoy your fall break! Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanks Phil – what a wonderful way to put things into perspective. Hoping you and your family have a safe and happy holiday.
SB
Sam, thanks for the comment. Blessings to you and your family too.
Mike, yes taking care of my family is one of my greatest enjoyments in life. In the end I believe it’s where I make the greatest impact.
Scott, I appreciate your thought. This is turning out to be one of the most restful holiday weeks I can remember.
I wish you each of you a wonderful holiday with family and friends. Sam included even though being in Malaysia, I’m guessing that you are looking forward to other holidays than this uniquely American one.
Sorry for stalking your blog today, Phil. I’m trying to recover from having my head under a rock in the corner and catching up with people’s posts.
A very nice list — and a perfect way to focus in on what really matters. I do think about very similar things. And it’s actually raining here right now — and hard! It has been seemingly forever that it has rained at all, let alone steadily and for most of the day. It’s a delight!
I hope your family had a lovely Thanksgiving.
Kelly, it really was one of the most delightful Thanksgiving breaks I can remember. I think I’m going to try and make it a tradition of holding-out a few days vacation for that week. So very restful. Yes, thankfulness puts much in perspective.
I’m so very glad for the rain for you. Been very concerned for you folks in SoCal with all the fires. It’s a strange turn of events for Texas to be one of the more wet areas of the country right now. We just ended a 10 year drought.