Why Should We Give Thanks Only On Thanksgiving?

Photo: thanksgivingwallpapers.blogspot.com

Why is there only one day out of the year that is dedicated to verbalizing how thankful we are?  Same thought with Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Grandparent’s Day, Secretary’s Day, or Veterans Day.  What good is acknowledging someone or something one day and leaving to chance the other 364 days of the year?

Don’t get me wrong.  I love holidays and all of those special days that are set aside to showcase a certain someone or something in our lives.  It’s a great reason to hug each other and have parties and buy cool stuff for others.

But what has always bothered me was that the specialness of it all was confined to 24 hours.  For example, the day before Mother’s Day my boys would be in their usual form of…well, being themselves. Then on Mother’s Day, they’d turn into perfect little angels the one day that all mothers get the day off from chores, cooking, cleaning, and if lucky, get taken out to dinner, only to find that it’s business as usual the next day.  It’s a great big bone thrown to us mothers just to keep us going until the next year.  Personally, I’d like to see Mother’s Day be celebrated everyday, but I would settle for once a week.

Now from November 1, when the stores start filling their aisles with Christmas stuff, when most of us get warm fuzzies and show extra love to our family and hug our neighbors, until the evening of December 25, the feeling of gratitude does prevail.  It’s a beautiful and uplifting experience.  I only wish that the feeling would go beyond the holiday season.

And I’m thinking Hallmark and boxed chocolate companies would make a hell of a lot more money if they would promote this idea of gratitude and giving all year round.

Photo: thenibble.com

I must say, though, that there are a lot of people who already put this into practice – I see it all the time on social sites such as Facebook, and that’s awesome!  They are all way ahead of the game.  They know that giving gratitude every day (or at least the majority of the time) only brings on more people, places, and situations for which to feel grateful for.

It’s easy to forget this in the face of life’s issues, but if we can remember to be grateful for at least one thing, one person, one experience every single day, it would be my guess the world would be a better place.  I know the effort that something like that takes better than anyone.  My days tend to pass in a blur and my head hits the pillow at the end of the day without an utterance of thanks, but it’s something I strive to remember every day.

Gratitude.

So, like everyone else, I’m being swept up in the season love.  I’m grateful for the events that have brought me back in touch with high school friends.  I’m eternally grateful for whatever inspired me to take Kristen Lamb’s blogging workshop which in turn gave me new friends from her classes (WANA sisters and big bro!) and new friends whose light I soak up in Twitterverse.  I’m grateful for my family, embracing cousins, aunts, and uncles, neighbors, and friends I have known since moving to this town.

My list of gratitude is long, as I’m sure yours is as well, so I’ll leave it at that for today.  Starting tomorrow, I’ll begin the list of 364 more.

Global Gratitude - Thank you, Universe

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!