Giving Up Thanksgiving For Christmas This Year?

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.  I am sitting here about to turn on the Macy’s Day Parade and for some reason thinking about Christmas and New Years Day and beyond.  For some reason this year it seems like we have skipped over Thanksgiving and are bolting ourselves into the Christmas day time. Retail stores are probably trying desperately to bring in people early this year, and around town I started seeing Christmas displays and hearing Christmas music over the intercom before Halloween was over.

I don’t remember Christmas coming right after Halloween last year but it seems to have creeped its way farther up the calendar this year. I like Thanksgiving and would like to take one of these at a time before we go on to the next one, but I realize that Thanksgiving is not a real big commercial season and no one gives presents from Best Buy at Thanksgiving (thank goodness). If there is no commercial purpose for the holiday, it seems that most businesses, TV and radio will just skip over day now. I hate rushing through life. We rush here and there all day every day and I would like to celebrate one holiday at a time. Deb and I are not real big fans of holiday days anyway, it always disrupts the routines of everything, but I would like to enjoy one before going on to the next.

So, today being Thanksgiving I figured I would do the typical what I am thankful for post. A few things I am thankful for.

• My Savior
• My wife, family, friends
• that I have food to eat, a place to live
• I am able to live in a free country
• clean water and shoes

Those are nothing earth shattering of course, but still something I am continually aware of and thankful for.  Early this week on Tuesday a friend of mine, Josh, did a great explanation of why we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, why it is important, and what was going on at the time.  It was during the Passover Celebration as explained in Exodus, but when Jesus and the disciples celebrated passover supper, Jesus spoke and said:

Matthew 26: 26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.” 27 Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.” 30 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Jesus “gave thanks” during this celebration dinner, and today we give thanks as well. I do like to remember that this is generally an American holiday (see Thanksgiving is a U.S. Holiday, Think Global) and we should not forget that this is not a world-wide holiday. Last year, Deb and I spent the holiday on our boat (sort of) for a few hours and ended up coming back home after their wifi went down (see here). It’s a year later and we are going to spend the day here at the house with my father-in-law David, (see Deb’s mom’s blog) and watching some football.