Thanksgiving - Yours, Mine and Ours!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving has all but gone away in our town. I am so sad I could cry.

I know I’m not the first person to feel this way, nor will I be the last. However, I feel a rebellion coming on.

The stores already are playing Christmas music and revving up for the holiday.

I realize that this is a huge portion of their income, but I take major objection to moving Thanksgiving on the back burner.

Thanksgiving is or at least should be the biggest holiday of the year next to the Fourth of July. Folks have forgotten that without the pilgrims of yesteryear and the pilgrims of today, we would be a poor, stagnant, unhealthy nation.

We are so very blessed.

I hear in the news how bad things are and I know it is true. However, I also know how great things are. This is what the nation tends to want to not dwell on. What is wrong with our minds?

I can sit in my own home and at my leisure type, talk on the phone, take a bath or do nothing.

I can make a garden to my liking - not having to conform with any other garden.

I can come and go without having to report to anyone or to be concerned about being watched just because I said something that was not right along with the government lines of thinking.

I can THINK when ever, where ever and how ever I want. I may not win the popular vote. Still, I am privileged to think as I so desire.

I can agree or disagree with those around me. I can dress like my peers or dress to my own individual taste.

I am free to color my hair and alter my looks or not - again, my choice.

I can start my own business from home and not have to worry about someone coming along and saying it is not up to par, therefore I either must close it down or pay the government to help me get it where THEY want it to be.

I am privileged to fly my American Flag any time I choose.

I am able to enjoy my grandchildren when they come to visit. We do not have to be careful what we say to one another, unless it borders on rude or something. <giggle>

I am privileged to purchase what ever I choose as long as I have the cash to pay for it (or the plastic if I should choose that venue for buying).

I can get fat, or not. I can be in shape, or not. I can be healthy or not. It is all up to me!

Is life sometimes hard? You bet it is. I have fibromyalgia, so each day is a challenge. I do not blame that on my country or my country men. It is what it is: painful, frustrating and at times depressing.

Fibromyalgia also causes brain fog which is to blame for many not-so-smart choices I have made. I have the privilege to get myself out of trouble, most of the time, when I make these choices. Others have the privilege of helping me in this endeavor, or not. It is a freedom of choice.

I am grateful and thankful for all of this freedom and I have not even started on the personal things that I have the freedom to enjoy.

I am thankful I have fibromyalgia because it gives me a venue to share with others and help them. I am free to be positive, or angry with my disease. I choose positive.

Folks will gather with their big meal, Mr. Turkey Bird in the middle of the table. But few will really celebrate what this day represents to us as Americans.

I challenge all who are reading this. Take a piece of paper and jot down at least 50 things you are grateful for right now. Go forward and make it 100 if you can. I know I can.

When I first started doing this, writing my gratitude journal, it was really a challenge. However, now, it is like - I cannot finish before I must get up and go do something. Life calls.

If you have not yet caught the feeling. Then I issue another challenge. Go volunteer somewhere that you have never been, a soup kitchen, a church, a YMCA to help out those folks who do not have "privileges.'

That might help you understand where I am coming from. If nothing else does - help some one out who really needs it, a stranger you see in the street, or even in your own family.

We are so blessed in these United States of America. We have more to be grateful for than we can ever imagine.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!