Turkey Day! The grocery stores are assaulting us with ads about all the delectable foods we can gorge on next week. The must haves are everywhere: pumpkin pie either home-made or purchased, plump birds to roast, stuffing, cranberries, and more. Retailers are doing their best to get you to shop on Black Friday if not sooner. Airlines, trains, bus companies are eager to help you get home or to help your family and friends get home to you. Kids are looking forward to a few days off from school. Life is busy.
Hey, wait a minute. What’s this holiday called? Right: Thanksgiving. Let’s take a moment to focus on gratitude. There’s so much in life to feel grateful for, to appreciate. Are you alive? That’s something to be thankful for. If you’re reading this, then you have access to electronic communication. I’m thankful for that. Oh, and you can read. That’s another thing on my gratitude list. I can’t tell you what to be grateful for, but I know I feel abundantly blessed.
I have family, friends, shelter, warmth, meals, health and life. The actual holiday of Thanksgiving has never had big demand for balloon work, so I have the day off. I can choose to moan about not making any money, but I choose not to. I choose to be grateful for time to spend with my husband. If things go as hoped, I’ll even see my kids, though that remains up in the air. I have the gift today of being able to say, “You know, we really don’t need to gorge ourselves. A modest yet nice meal is all we need to sustain us and we can be grateful for that.” Ok, so I plan to treat myself to some home-made lefse. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, think tortilla but Norwegian and potato based.
As I roll out each piece of lefse and carefully lift it onto the griddle I’ll remember how much my dad enjoyed coming over to help make it after he retired. I could count on a quality control check. He checked plenty! I’ll be grateful I learned how to make the lefse not only because my mom hated it and was so happy to have someone else do it, and for the family legacy of knowing a tradition from my grandmother’s homeland. Lefse and pies were my Thanksgiving responsibility because you wouldn’t want to trust the vegetarian to make a turkey, would you? Ack, it might end up being tofurkey. Nah! I’ve never even tried that.
I’ll be grateful for you, too. Thank you to and for my friends and family. May you be blessed with abundance.
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