I do not like to wait. If I buy a gift for someone, I usually deliver it long before it’s time. We tend to shop for Christmas all year long, looking for sales and trying to help Santa finish early. At some point, we forget where we hide things or forget what we have purchased, all of which makes for a fascinating Christmas Eve.
And each year, I swear I will “do” Advent better. Then it sneaks up on me and pretty soon we are halfway through the season and I still haven’t gotten the candles out.
Apparently, the rest of the world is afraid they will miss this important time of preparation too. Everyone seems to be in a rush to get to the manger. Christmas lights and decorations were up at Home Depot long before all the pumpkins were sold. Black Friday, which was annoyingly creeping into Thanksgiving day, has suddenly, and for no apparent reason (save the obvious greed), developed into a season all its own. You can now shop Black Friday sales pretty much all through November. Small Business Saturday gives way to Cyber Monday and soon we are two weeks into Advent and I can’t find the wreath.
And in the midst of this mess, we have lost sight of my favorite national holiday.
Prayers of Thanksgiving have long been a part of our religious heritage and prayers of thanksgiving at harvest time have been around for centuries. Rooted in this country in the practices of Puritans and stories of Pilgrims, Thanksgiving was first celebrated by all the states in the Union in 1863 as Abraham Lincoln sought to hold a country together. Later proclaimed a national holiday by a joint resolution in Congress and signed by Franklin Roosevelt in 1941, Thanksgiving has been a part of our nation’s fabric for generations.
Though the timing was changed along the way, in part for economic reasons, the simple message remained the same: take one day of the year to give thanks for all that we have.
So before we decorate. Before we light candles and open little paper doors. Before making our list and check it twice. Before all the waiting begins, let us just stop for one day. No shopping. No surfing. No texting. No posting.
Just be with the people you love and say “thank you” for the blessings they are in your life. Thank them for the way they challenge you, move you, and improve you.
It’s one day. My favorite day. Family day. Lazy day. Baking day. Cooking day. Going to Mass because we want to day. Pie day. Turkey day. Thanksgiving Day.
Thanks be to God for the blessing we have, the blessings we are, and the blessings we are called to share
~pjd
This post originally appeared in 2013 but the Donovan clan returned home late last night from the National Catholic Youth Conference and are exhausted, so please forgive the repost.