It's early morning and I'm the only one awake.  It's a beautiful, sunny morning despite forecasts of apocalyptic snow storms heading our way.  It's calm and blue out there right now.

It's cold.  Two weeks ago, it was nearly seventy degrees and we took advantage of that but winter came in like a bully and it's for real.  We punched it in the nose by fixing our fireplace but winter just laughed at us.

I'm thankful for winter.

Winter is time to get work done, to enjoy the quiet of my house.  I'm very productive in winter because I'm not distracted by the weather, calling to me from my office window, mocking the work I'm doing and showing me how much I'm missing by not being outside.  Winter just lights up the inside of my house and makes me glad I have one.

I'm thankful that I have a house.  My house is not big or fancy but it's perfect for me; it sits on a hill and we have a gorgeous view of the sunset every night.  There's a room that's perfect for doing needlepoint when the sun shines.  I have an office space that lets me spread out a little and not worry about dripping things on the floor.  It has a kitchen that's perfect for baking cookies.  It's just big enough to squeeze our family (or at least one side of it) into on Christmas eve.

Okay, it's really not big enough but the whole fam can't ever come at the same time; many of them live out of state and several of them rotate between our side and their other side.  Last year, we managed to add a few of my side because my folks moved into the same neighborhood with Jay's older brother.  He invited them.  Can I be blamed that Jay's family and my family like each other ? 

It's dangerous, though. In the summer, we usually have  a party to which both sides are invited, including several first cousins on Jay's side with whom we love to gather but in the summer, we do have a back yard suitable for gathering.  And a front yard for anyone who needs to escape the mob for a few minutes.  And the park across the street for the slightly older kids to run to when they need to get away from the grownups.
But in the winter, we have a limited amount of space.  If we make it a tradition to try to get all our relatives into this house...we're talking a hundred people if they all show up.  A hundred people playing the present game is like having a cage match with the most ruthless people you've ever met.  Our Christmas motto would quickly change from "It ain't Christmas till someone's crying" to "It ain't Christmas till someone's bleeding" to "Holy Crap, you KILLED him!"

I just don't think it 's worth it for a Tony the Tiger Cereal bowl set.

I am so thankful for my family.  I like mine so much that the idea of dreading time spent with one's family is completely alien to me and I don't really believe people when they complain about it.  And I like Jay's family (My family, too for 30 years, now.) just as much.

I can honestly say that I could be stranded on a desert island with my parents, or any of my brother's and sisters without wanting to eat any of them.

And that's not just because most of them wouldn't make a decent meal, either. (There's not enough meat on my sister, Katie to feed a house cat.)  Have I spent too much time considering the circumstances under which I would eat her?  No.  No one would waste any time planning on eating kate.  I would make a cannibal's mouth water, but Katie would be safe, even in the deepest jungles of the Amazon or wherever the cannibal's are hiding out these days.

I'm grateful I don't live near any cannibals.

Aren't' you?  Think about it.

I'm grateful that I'm an American in the 21st century. 

Compared to living anywhere else, at any other time in human history, you quickly realize that we here, now, are the luckiest people to ever walk the earth.  It seems like such a simple thing; Freedom, capitalism and the rule of law.  Yet few societies get it right and we see every day how close we can come to losing it and how easy that would be.

I'm grateful that I'm a Christian.  The knowledge the Christ has already won the war between good and evil and all we have to do is pick which side we want to be on is the single greatest thing I know.  It colors everything else, both consciously and subconsciously.

I'm grateful that I'm a Catholic.  Getting past all the nonsense of the behavior of some Catholics, the Church and it's Catechism is the most comprehensive, wise philosophy of life I will ever come across.  I say that confidently because in my own fifty years, even the points that I disagreed with or didn't like, have come to show themselves to be true.  Enough so to make my hair stand on end at times.   More than enough to make me say "Okay, you win.  I don't have all the answers.  You actually do, and I can find them if I care enough to really look and listen."  Realizing that was the single most liberating thing that ever revealed itself to me.

I'm grateful for all five of my senses even though I don't appreciate or use them all as much as I could.  My sense of smell is either not too good or I just ignore it, I'm in no position to know the difference.  My hearing is diminishing rapidly.  I may have inherited my Dad's deafness or I may just have huge wax build ups, who know?  If I wind up deaf, that just affords me more peace and quiet.

I'm mostly grateful for my eyes.  I depend on them more than all my other senses put together and I enjoy  seeing more than anything else I do, including eating or sleeping.  Losing my vision would be like losing my mind.

I'd rather lose my mind.

But you know what?  If something ever caused me to go blind, I'd live with it.  How?  Because it would be temporary.  That's all part of the peace and confidence of knowing the battle is won.

Like most parents, that's the one thing I wish I could teach my kids but I know it's not the sort of thing you can get anyone who hasn't experienced it to believe; like the fast passage of time, it means nothing until you know it first hand.

I'm grateful for my kids.  They are all smart, good, interesting, talented people that I thoroughly enjoy.  I get along with them, too. I am grateful that my oldest son fell in love with a fantastic girl and married her.  I LIKE hanging out with all my kids.  Three of them have reached adulthood now and they are all people that I am very proud to be able to claim having had something to do with how they turned out.

I think they like me.

The single thing in the entire world for which I am most grateful is Jay. 

It's been decades now, since I first caught his eye and I'm still brought up short every few days wondering how in the world I managed to do that.

I thought he was the coolest guy ever and in all these years, I've never changed my mind.  And the most amazing thing is that he seemed to think the same of me.  How lucky can we get?

This is not to say we never fight.  We disagree and yell at each other fairly often and sometimes we even get mad.  Then we get over it.  Our families taught us to do that. 

I am grateful that God has seen fit to bless me in so many ways every day of my life and for all of that I give thanks.

Have a happy Thanksgiving.

 

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