I Am Thankful

Holidays always mean different things to different people. For some families, Christmas is the time of year that the entire family comes together and celebrates the season. For others, holidays aren’t as important as those family get-togethers in the middle of April or August that have nothing to do with anything.

For me, the best holiday of the year is Thanksgiving. Every year, the family would get up early (or the kids would get up early) and then my mom and my sister would spend hours preparing the hors d’oeuvres for the meal later that day. We would then go over to the house of our best family friends sometime early in the afternoon. What would follow was always a little different but so similar it’s not even worth discussing the differences. The kitchen would be alive with activity, the living room alive with football. For what felt like an eternity, food would go into the oven and then come out, filling the house with smells so good that you are reminded why you only have this holiday once a year. The smells would be so good that if you had to endure that for more than an hour or so without eating, rioting would have broken out and the non-cooking half of the family would have gone on strike. In their infinite wisdom, the cooks prepared the hors d’oeuvres first so we would have something that was delicious to stuff in our faces while the rest of the food was cooking.

Late in the afternoon or early in the evening (or as Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory would say, the “prevening”) word would filter through the house that the turkey was nearly ready. Everyone would start to converge on the kitchen and would look out over the sea of side dishes and wonder how we could possibly eat this much food. Usually there was a football game still on and for as big a fan as I am, I don’t think I’ve ever watched the end of the game in that time slot.

At long last the turkey would come out and what would follow is quite possibly the most excruciating period of time of the entire day. All the cooking is done and all that remains is the most important part; the carving. By now everyone is hungry and all the food is cooked; it’s a miracle that we actually make it to the dinner table every year.

When the feast is finally ready to be consumed, it is time for one of the traditions that (for me at least) has never gotten old; the serving order. We have done:

Youngest to oldest
Oldest to youngest
Shortest to tallest
Tallest to shortest (my personal favorite)
First birthdays to last (within the calendar year) and vice versa
Alphabetical by first name and the opposite

Those are just a few of the more common themes that we’ve used over the years. In the last few years in the quest for something original, they have gotten very interesting (take your birth month, add one month, then line up in alphabetical order by month… ties are broken by birth date in ascending order) but sure enough, no person has ever gotten to serve themselves first or last two years in a row.

The food has always been great but I can honestly say that it could have been Spam and I still would have enjoyed it just as much. Spending time with that splendid group of people has provided me with some of the fondest memories that I have and some that I’m sure will be some of the best I’ll ever have. I look forward to starting new traditions of my own when I have a family of my own but they will always be trying to live up to a nearly impossible standard.

To all of you out there that made those memories what they are for me (you know who you are), thank you.

WHAT AM I THANKFUL FOR?

I am grateful for many things in my life and I just wanted to take this opportunity to mention a few of them. It is a truly impossible task for me to say each and every thing that I am thankful for and if I happen to leave you out, I am truly sorry.

I am thankful for my girlfriend. She has been an enormous part of the last four (and a little bit) years of my life and has never asked me to change who I was and has loved me for who I am.

I am thankful for Captain. This painfully cute little mutt has taught me many things about responsibility and has given me an ever so shallow look into what it’s like to be a parent. I still maintain that he is the cutest dog in the world and I beam whenever other people tell me how cute he is or how nice he is.

I am thankful for my friends. Over the years, you have been there for anything I’ve needed to get through issues that run the gamut from serious to all between my ears. You’ve provided the shoulder to cry on and the smack upside the head, right when they were needed the most.

I am thankful to have a roof over my head and food on my plate. Far too many people have to struggle for these basic needs.

I am thankful to have a job. I work hard every day afraid that it might be my last. I am thankful for all the people who have taken a chance on me and I’d like to think that if they had to do it over again, they would make the same decision.

I am thankful to live in a country where I can have a blog that is akin to an online extension of my brain. I can put every little thought I have on here and I do not have to worry about government censorship or oversight.

I am thankful that I live in a country where I am free. I’m not going to quibble about the definition of free and I’m not going to go into the limits of those freedoms (as relatively few of them are truly unlimited); I’m going to simply say that I am free and I’m glad.

I am thankful for my failures. I know that it sounds strange but I would not be the person I am today if it were not for my failures. I have fallen and I have learned to get back up again. This has led to a feeling of absolute empowerment; I believe that the world is mine for the taking in a way that I haven’t believed since I was a small child and knew everything. This feeling has helped me leave my comfort zone and has expanded my horizons in ways I’ve never dreamed of. It has helped me embody a couplet which came to me from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe via my dad:

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it
boldness has genius, power, and magic in it”

Above all else, I am thankful for my family. To my mom, my dad, and my sister; I can’t possibly thank you adequately for everything you have done for me in my life. Instead, I will say a small phrase that sounds and feels grossly inadequate but I will say it and mean it with every shred of my heart and soul:

Thank you for being you.



All of my best wishes to you and yours this Thanksgiving.