Thanksgiving, a day dedicated to gratefulness, is a distant memory now with Christmas sneaking up more quickly than seems possible.
As I’ve mentioned before, Christmas often gets tangled up in commercialism. Many people cannot see past a list of wants that results in shiny boxes wrapped and piled underneath a tree.
Maybe instead of looking forward to the packages we’ll soon be unwrapping, we should be looking around us to see the things we already have. The holiday season is already proclaimed as one of love, peace, joy and hope. That may seem to be covering all of the basics, but there should be one more tacked onto the list: thankfulness.
Thankfulness shouldn’t be put away and stored for next year as soon as the last leftover turkey is tossed out. It’s an attitude we should carry throughout the year, but it should be especially prevalent at Christmas.
I’m a strong advocator of recognizing things in the world we want to see changed, and I also believe we should take note of the things in our lives we are lucky enough to have. This column may be finding many of you on a particularly dismal day when nothing seems to be going right.
Perhaps you’re not ready for your next final, and you still have a dozen other things to do. Well, the last final is Thursday, and then we’ll all be free to follow other pursuits.
My pursuits will lead me back to Chetopa, where my family members will be waiting to lavish me with love and attention. I’ll try to be thankful for them, even when they question me about every minute detail of my life. My parents will stoke the fireplace until it’s so hot in the living room I’ll be panting in front of an open window, desperately trying to find cool air, and I’ll try to be thankful I have family, shelter and heat.
As it turns out, even when we think things aren’t going so well for us, we have a lot compared to others.
We all know we take things for granted. This Christmas, let’s remember all that won’t be underneath a tree or in a stocking because they’re things we already have.