Thankfully, I didn't Miss Thanksgiving

Yes, I was worried there for awhile. It started with the chain retailers changing over their in-store displays to Christmas before Halloween, soon to be followed by a local radio station switching to its all-Christmas music format in the beginning of November. Then there were the half-dozen, or so, neighborhood light displays going up (and staying on every night) two weeks before Thanksgiving. With the "how bad could it be" buzz for Black Friday, it is little wonder I half-expected to get steamrolled right into December.

It's generally a good thing to have the pause--reset the baseline, as it were--share the same old foods, see the same old faces, hear the same old stories because, while the stories are the same, for example, we are not, so we have a different way of hearing them; a truism we find in the liturgical cycle, anyone?

Very early in our marriage, the Troglodytrix and I would spend at least part of Thanksgiving with her extended family. One year, her aunt randomly asked a few people, "What are you thankful for this year?" I'm sure I was visibly relieved when I skated by without having to give an answer.

However, I was ready the next year and for a few years after that, but either my name didn't get called, or we didn't do it that particular year. We haven't had Thanksgiving with all those folks in more than ten years, but my answer remains, as trite as it sounds, "I am thankful for my problems."

For the record, some of this year's include:

1. Burning over Catholic institutions acting repeatedly (leftist) Protestant while taking my money.
2. Failing to find something to be "for."
3. Running ragged.
4. Chewing my finger nails too short.

Come to think of it, they all relate to a certain "spiritual dryness." Well, here's to hoping for "a decent abundance of rain."