Happy Thanksgiving Canada

We're celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend, and I have a busy few days ahead of me.  We'll be hosting the turkey sit-down at our house, making a couple of trips to the rink, and hopefully enjoying some beautiful fall weather.  A to-do list is running circles around my head and I don't have it in me to write anything inspirational today, so I'm recycling last years Thanksgiving post.  This weekend is all about family, gratitude, and turkey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(Canada)

The long Thanksgiving weekend is here!  As excited as I am about enjoying three days off with my family and sitting down to an all-the-trimmings turkey dinner, I'm also reflecting on the many things we have to be thankful for.  Traditionally, Thanksgiving celebrated the harvest and all the blessings of the past year.  It was a holiday created to express gratitude.  I've been thinking about gratitude a lot lately.  I've watched people I love and care about struggle with various crisis in their lives and I am reminded again and again of all that we have to be thankful for.  

Gratitude is about taking notice of what's around you and being aware of all the good things in your life.  Often we are so busy thinking about the future, or dwelling on the past, that we don't see the present and all the things we should be grateful for on a daily basis.  Sometimes we get caught up in comparing our lives to the lives of others and wishing for better or more.  Gratitude is the act of looking to our own lives - the roads that we've travelled, the experiences we've been through, the gifts that we've been given - and appreciating all that this life is teaching us.  Life may not be perfect and our paths may need adjusting, but gratitude requires that we look to the good in our lives and be thankful for it.  Often the very things we take for granted are the things that some people only wish for.  Despite hardships and challenges, when you stop and really take a look around you, life is pretty good.

So this Thanksgiving weekend I am thankful for my family, healthy kids, our imperfect home, the turkey that's in the oven, and the beautiful autumn weather.  I'm also grateful for teachers that do great crafts in their classrooms.  A Thanksgiving table setting can be a beautiful thing, but it's decorations like this that make them great:

Easy, peasy... a potato, some toothpicks and construction paper 'feathers', and a turkey face from a colouring page... love it!

Thank you for the feature!