海角大神

Before the Thanksgiving meal is even prepared, many people have been rehashing and simmering over personal catalogues of their blessings online, giving thanks for everything from life-altering accomplishments to having five minutes of uninterrupted silence with a cup of tea while the kids are engaged in a quiet, non-destructive pursuit.

As a mom, I think it鈥檚 as important to have the 鈥渢hanks鈥� in Thanksgiving as it is to put 鈥淐hrist鈥� into Christmas, so the holiday becomes something more valuable to our family than conspicuous consumption.

In our family, the Thanksgiving tradition is to go around the dinner table and each one of us names something for which we were grateful. Over the past 20 years the answers varied from the politically correct responses like 鈥淚鈥檓 grateful for my Mom and Papa鈥� to 鈥淚鈥檓 thankful you didn鈥檛 make the Brussels sprouts you threatened to do if we didn鈥檛 eat our salads last week.鈥澛�

However, for many, it鈥檚 become the fashion to start publicly counting your blessings online months in advance of the holiday.

Perhaps one of the best-known social media challenges is the 100 Days of Gratitude Challenge that has, for the second time, become popular as a Facebook post in my new feed, started by a woman named Marianne who runs the website Miracle Mama.聽

鈥淪eptember 23rd, 2014 marks the first day of my 100-day gratitude challenge. As I mentioned in a previous post [click here], I鈥檓 repeating the challenge I gave to myself four years ago in 2010. I鈥檓 closing the year with 100 days of focused gratitude practice,鈥� she posted on her website.聽

I鈥檝e seen this post rolling around Facebook since the Fall with some posts being spiritually impressive as the person speaks each day of random acts of kindness, helping others, and faith.

One or two I鈥檝e seen caught my eye because they were funny, saying the person was grateful the store was out of cheesecake because therein lay the salvation of a diet.

Sadly, a few used the challenge as an excuse to spend 100 days making seemingly endless humble brags about how grateful the parent is for their child鈥檚 perfect grades, hair, sports record, etc.

I didn鈥檛 join in, partly because I felt that my list would not be very earth shattering, since it comprises some of the smallest things.

Most days, I tend to be grateful when disasters are smaller than I imagined they might become. On other days, my gratitude can be immense for having enough scoops of coffee left in the bag at 6 a.m. to launch my day.

Recently聽I got to see how at least two of my sons have found a place of understated and all-encompassing gratitude for the simple good in their life.

Last weekend we hosted聽my youngest son鈥檚 11^th聽birthday party. He finally had kids come to his birthday party, after several long years of being bullied at school and not easily accepted by other kids, due in part to personality quirks tied to being diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome.

In the past it鈥檚 been a struggle to get more than one or two children from his classes to come to the party.

This year, all but one child, who had an out-of-town engagement, arrived at the party.

He got more presents than he did in all the 11 years of parties combined in that one day.

At one point my son Quin opened a card with an iTunes card in it and puzzled over it because he doesn鈥檛 own an iPod.

Quin politely thanked the boy while the others mocked the gift.

The giver grew red-faced with mortification shouting, 鈥淒on鈥檛 judge me! My mom picked it out!鈥�

To the rescue (and my great shock) came my son Avery, 15, saying, 鈥淗ey you guys, chill. There are no bad birthday presents. It鈥檚 free stuff. Everybody鈥檚 always happy to get free stuff!鈥�

All the boys bowed to the teenage wisdom on display before them and before long they were all patting the giver on the back for his mother鈥檚 coolness.

After everyone had gone home and my house and yard looked like the path Sherman marched to the sea, I asked Quin what he was grateful for that day as I ticked down the list of party games, cake, and the pile of gifts.

鈥淭hat everybody came to my birthday,鈥� he said. 鈥淚鈥檓 just thankful that they liked me enough to be with me.鈥澛�

This is the moment I will keep in mind as stress over the holiday shopping and fretting what to buy for everyone on my list creeps into my thinking, even before the turkey grows cold on Thanksgiving.

There is nothing for sale on Black Friday or beyond that anyone could be more grateful to receive than knowing that people like you enough to want to be around you.