Thursday, November 27, 2014

Thanksgiving - 2014

For the first time in, no joke, 10 years, I will be celebrating Thanksgiving with my biological family.  I specify the biological part, because I've spent pretty much every Thanksgiving with family - just not always blood related.  For that, I am supremely thankful to have found people who would take me in and treat me like family to celebrate a wonderful day and have on many, many occasions.

I love Thanksgiving.  A lot.  Most people probably don't know this about me.  Mostly because I don't openly profess my love for Thanksgiving as it usually gets construed as a love for turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and gluttony.  While I do enjoy all those things, what I love about Thanksgiving is it has no religious undertones and no ceremonial acts associated with it.  As an atheist, this makes me super, super happy.  The entire country (EVERYONE) gets to celebrate something as simple as saying thank you for the good things that have come your way in life.  Despite what people think, atheists are grateful and we acknowledge when good things happen in life due to hard work or coincidence (sometimes referred to as luck) and that showing appreciation for those things is healthy, good, and goes a long way to fostering happiness.  It is not religious.  It's not me thanking someone else or some weird energy for the things in life that make me happy, it's simply as expression of gratitude and humility that life has some great aspects and I have great people in my life.

For those reasons, I'm happy to be sharing this year with my original family.  It is great to be able to share in their world for a bit and hear about the wonderful events happening with them.  As far as the gluttony piece goes - I'm usually pretty good about keeping the food consumption in check.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

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