Can you believe it's already Thanksgiving 2006? This will be
Micah's 2nd 
Thanksgiving, and my 30th. (Crazy.)
Thanksgiving, and my 30th. (Crazy.)...
After 30 years of Thanksgivings... I have a few favored traditions that I like to keep.
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1.) The wish bone. Not that I necessarily have to be the one that does it. But someone has to. Cooking and eating an entire turkey and not doing the wish bone would be... well... a tragedy.
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2.) Pie.
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3.) Putting olives on all my fingers and eating them off. I know... You're thinking, "How old are you?" But come on, now that I've mentioned it, you know you're going to do it too...
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4.) Hanging out with family.
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5.) Watching how much earlier the Christmas adds, sales and decorations begin to pop up. When I was a kid, Christmas stuff didn't begin until at least December... Then, as I got older, every year it came earlier and earlier, until Thanksgiving itself became this sort of line. No Christmas before Thanksgiving. But the next day... Wham! Christmas is here! It's as if the day after Thanksgiving has become an unofficial national holiday for shopping. (It's now the #1 money making day of the year for retail stores!)
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But this year, I saw something I couldn't believe: Christmas adds right after Halloween? Christmas cards displayed in October? Decorations in malls before Thanksgiving? From a marketing standpoint, I suppose it does make sense. (It is true that the earlier a store begins their Christmas sales, the more money they bring in for the holiday season.) But I can't help thinking that something is wrong when we so quickly skip to Christmas (that is the commercial version of Christmas-which is a whole nother post) and Thanksgiving seems to be lost in the shuffle.
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All of this brings me to my point...
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For the Jews we read about in the Bible, holidays were things they were commanded to observe in order to help them remember who God was and what He had done for them. Thanksgiving, though not a "Jewish" holiday, and not set into place by God Himself, was created for the same reason. To help us remember that we have much to be Thankful for. It's a day we set asided to reflect on all that we have been given, to celebrate that and to thank God for it.
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If you're anything like me, it's easy these days to let Thanksgiving get lost in the shuffle. My mind has already been trained to think about what I want for Christmas. Instead of a spirit of thanksgiving, I have a spirit of "want"... (really of greed). At best, when Thanksgiving day comes, I celebrate my 5 favorite traditions mentioned above...
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But to only do this, would be to miss the point of Thanksgiving entirely.
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So, I have a 5th tradition. It's the one that I treasure the most, but is often the most difficult to actually do. It's simply to stop what I'm doing, pull out a piece of paper, and write down all that I'm thankful for. And then, to thank God for it. Later, Heather and I will share with each other what we are thankful for and then pray together.
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For me, this tradition has been a very helpful way to enter the Christmas season. Just before the "busiest shopping day of the year", it has helped me to have my focus on God and what I can give, rather then what I can get. And like the Jewish holidays and festivals, it has been a great way to remember... To remember all that I have to be thankful for. In short, it's been a great way to actually, truly celebrate Thanksgiving.
