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Since I moved to Canada, American Thanksgiving has snuck (sneaked? snook?) up on me every year. I think it's just not pronounced enough of an event to catch my eye. It has its own traditions, but it's not like Halloween, which has a whole set of very unique images and themes and even colours. It's not tied to the church, like Christmas and Easter, so I don't notice it coming in the liturgical ebb and flow. It's not calendar-based, like New Years, so I don't associate it with having to write a new date or change my calendars. I don't farm, nor have I ever lived in a rural community, so harvest issues are alien to me. Poor Thanksgiving is just sort of...there. Living outside of American broadcast range and well away from Wal-Mart store displays, American Thanksgiving falls right off the map. We certainly don't get the day off from class, and if you don't see the TV ads for the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Special, or at least those cheesy "the cast and crew of CSI Miami wish you a Happy Thanksgiving" bumpers, you can miss it entirely. Or maybe it's just me. Since it's always near my birthday, Thanksgiving sort of gets lost for me. Heck, I've even stopped noticing the approach of my birthday. I get confused when people send me packages and act all secret about shopping trips. Maybe because late November is such a busy time for school...for whatever reason, I always forget the approach of this holiday. So I was caught off guard by the avalanche of Thanksgiving wishes today. I consider the holiday done and gone - Canadians give their thanks in October and I, as in Rome, now do likewise. I suppose I could angle an extra Turkey dinner out of this arrangement, but I'm actually trying to lose weight at the moment. On the other hand, it's never a bad thing to give thanks. So thanks to God for a multitude of blessings - for the love of a truly good woman, the chance to serve Christ's church, for a supportive and loving family, for an education from and alongside some enormously bright people, for friends on the journey, for plenty (sometimes too much) to eat, for a warm and snug home, for an ever-so-slightly neurotic cat, for beautiful music, for colourful birds, for a nice cup of tea and a good glass of wine, for good literature, for British TV, for Trinity academic gowns, for little kids who raise their hands and then forget why, for friendly neighbourhood shopkeepers, for a peaceful and (one hopes) productive life and for God's grace in Christ and in all creation... Thanks be to God. |
