A few words about Thanksgiving – my official yearly holiday rant
on November 5th, 2009 at 5:30 am
I have several major pet peeves about the holidays in the U.S.
It’s getting worse instead of better. My first peeve is when I start getting advertising telling me to buy for Christmas – BEFORE HALLOWEEN. I know there are those of you out there who buy for Christmas in freaking JUNE and I’m very proud for you. I am not one. I do not put up the Christmas tree on October 1st, nor do I ever intend to. Part of it is that I happen to love Halloween (or Samhain if you prefer) so I don’t care to have MY major holiday skipped over so that the corporations can race right into gouging and guilt tripping everyone out of their last dime in the name of Christmas.
Which brings me to Thanksgiving. Now that Halloween is the 2nd largest revenue producing holiday, hardly any commercial venture can resist screaming right out of Halloween and straight into Christmas. Whatever happened to Thanksgiving?
Now, I personally do not celebrate Thanksgiving. What do I have to give thanks for other than that ¼ of my ancestors hadn’t yet gotten around to exterminating the other ¾ of my ancestors. A fine way to say Thank you for teaching us how to live in this new land after you found us starving to death and stealing your stored grain.
(Just as an aside, I do celebrate Mabon, which is the witch’s thanksgiving, in September)
The other reason I don’t do Thanksgiving is because I believe you should give thanks every day you wake up alive and able to get out of bed. Or even just alive. I do. And what you give thanks for, you will receive more of. That is how the Universe works. Not because God says so, Krishna says so, the Goddess says so, Louise Hay says so, the Law of Attraction says so – just because that is so. Really, it is. Try it.
I think Americans in particular never stop for one instant to say, “Thank you”. Not “Thank you I am alive, AND healthy, AND have a roof over my head, AND food to eat, AND an income, AND a car that runs, AND …” Nope. Most Americans get up in the morning and say “Goddamn it I have to go to my crboring job and put up with my obnoxious boss so I can pay my bills so I can use my credit cards to buy more THINGS so that I can somehow believe that if I just had enough THINGS in my life I would be happy.” This is so prevalent, that most Americans now cannot even be bothered to take ONE DAY A YEAR to say Thank you. For anything.
Nope. They spend that day stuffing their face with food (which they don’t bother to give thanks for – enough food to WASTE food, enough food to have leftovers, enough food to share scraps with their pets) and sitting on their behind watching football woven in between commercials to BUY THINGS for Christmas. Sitting in a warm house with their family around them, with warm and probably brand new clothing, on a couch, watching a color TV with cable most likely, maybe playing around on their laptop on the Internet – for one second stop and count the blessings in that list.
Believe it or not, there are hundreds of thousands of people in the world who don’t have food to eat, let alone to waste. Don’t’ have a roof over their head, don’t have a loving family, don’t have TV let alone cable or a computer or Internet. Don’t even have clothing adequate to the weather. More than a few people (some of them American servicemen and women) spend the day hoping they do not get shot or bombed to death.
I am not saying don’t enjoy your blessings. I’m not for one minute telling you that you cannot thoroughly enjoy every single thing you have worked for and purchased. In fact, what I am saying is be sure and remember and give thanks that you are capable of working, have a job, are enjoying a home, a job, a TV, a computer, a warm cup of tea, a family, a new sweater, living in one of the richest, safest, and most comfortable countries in the world. Just take a few seconds out of your busy schedule of eating and watching TV to think “I am so blessed. I am so blessed to have this food, to have a home, and clothes, and a TV and cable and family.”
Now here is a REALLY novel idea. Do that every single day. Do it in the evening, do it in the morning, do it whenever you happen to think of it. Wake up in the morning and think, “I am blessed – I’m alive and healthy and secure under my roof and my blankets in my bed and I can walk – I can walk to the kitchen and make me a wonderful cup of my favorite coffee in my coffee maker with the electricity that I enjoy here. Then I can have a bite of a convenient breakfast and go to my job which I am so blessed to have so I have an income so I can go on buying breakfasts and coffee and electricity and a roof over my head.”
I know there are many people out there who don’t happen to be employed this Thanksgiving. I know what that’s like, believe me. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and wrinkles, too. And gave thanks for the t-shirt and the opportunity to discover my own resourcefulness and talents to get me through. I give thanks for the wonderful people in my life who have helped me make it through – from the nun at Catholic Charities who interviewed me and approved me for a bag of groceries once over 20 years ago, to the husband who has hung in there with me for almost 20 years and who now works and supports me so I can pursue my dreams.
No matter how little you think you’ve got to give thanks for – give thanks for it. Appreciate your blessings. No matter how tiny they are or seem to be. And this really cool thing will happen – they will increase. I promise.
If nothing else – take that ONE DAY this year, Thanksgiving, and spend at least a few minutes of it actually giving thanks for your blessings. You can do it while ignoring the TV commercials.
I especially recommend you make a list. Write your blessings down. For some reason, once you get started writing them down the list takes on a life of it’s own and you find yourself listing all sorts of things you probably take for granted every day – until you stopped to list them. And then you can hang on to that list and on days when you wake up grumpy and mad at the world – pull it out of your wallet or wherever you decide to stash it (I like hanging it on the refrigerator) and start reading it. You will then discover another little miracle – counting your blessings will make you happy.
And when you go forth into the world happy, you make others happy. You also draw other happy people to you. And you know what, happy people are blessed – and share their blessings. Before you know it, more good people and opportunities and blessings will be showing up in your life. And so it goes.
I’m not promising you’ll never have another bad day. They happen. But you get so good at finding blessings that you’ll find them in the most surprising places.
The car broke down – but only a few blocks from home or work so you could get help or make it on to where you were going. Thank goodness it broke down only a few blocks from home! That’s a blessing!
Sometimes you don’t see the blessing right away – but just hang in there. It will become evident some day. I married an abusive man when I was seventeen. But he taught me to “never take shit off anyone”. It took me eight years to figure out that meant I shouldn’t take any shit off him either! But meanwhile, I had learned to stand up for myself. I stood up to him and moved on. It was even later before I realized that he taught me the very skills that made me able to not only get him out of my life, but to avoid falling into another abusive relationship ever again. What a blessing!
Think right. Do right. Do your best, and look for the blessings – and give thanks for them. You’re going to be surprised. Some things change for the better right away. Other things take longer.
I’ve been working this for a good 20+ years now. The improvement in my life has been substantial – and mostly in things you cannot measure.
Everyone wants to work the Law of Attraction for money. As if money were the be all and end all of life.
The things I lacked in life were not so easily measurable. I did not have a family who loved me or supported me. I was alone in the world, to sink or swim on my own. I swam around in a vodka bottle for a few years. I didn’t much care if I lived or died, and no one else did either. One day I picked up a book called “The Little Red Book” by Anonymous. What the heck – it cost me a dollar. I’ll read anything. (This is NOT The Little Red Book associated with AA)
It changed my life. I can’t find it any more (I used to order five or so at a time and give them away). But it said in words I could understand the very basics of what I’m telling you right now. Count your blessings is the first thing.
Decide what it is you really want is the second. There are a lot of books and articles and websites devoted to that aspect of the Law of Attraction. The Little Red Book was written long before The Secret and never used the phrase Law of Attraction – but that is a convenient name to use for this set of ideas about living.
I’m not here to convince you to use the Law of Attraction. Maybe you feel your life is pretty good and you don’t need it. Which is great! My purpose with this article is to get people thinking about, and counting, and appreciating, their blessings. And if it improves one life, just a little, I’ll be happy.
My life isn’t perfect yet – there’s still things I want to work on. But I suspect when your life is perfect, you go home.
By the way, I found out that little book is still being published – it is now called “It Works”. Now that I’ve found it I’m ordering another five or so copies! You can buy it here (no affiliation) It Works
I wrote a Squidoo lens on this subject (it’s not quite done yet) and I’m finding a lot of Squidoo lenses about giving Thanks on Thanksgiving – so I’ll share them here as we go along this month. I give thanks that there are so many wonderful people out there spreading the word about counting your blessings!
Blessedbe
Summer Fey Foovay
