We need Thanksgiving Day

We need to give thanks. We need Thanksgiving Day.

I hope you were able to spend the holiday with family or that you could recall memories of past Thanksgivings with great fondness.

We were blessed with family and my daughter’s friend, a young lady from China who came to America on Aug. 19.

We were honored to have her experience her first American Thanksgiving in our home.

After a day of watching Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on television, deep-frying the turkey, eating dinner and snacking during 10-hand games of Uno, we watched an old family favorite, “Father Knows Best Home For Christmas” and “Heloise at Christmastime.”

To borrow a line from another movie, “Christmas Vacation,” holiday trappings can be cliché; so are family gatherings, I suppose. But we need them. Even if we spend holidays with close friends instead of blood relatives, gatherings are important. I hope Amanda’s friend felt she was part of our family this holiday.

Such gatherings re-affirm our sense of God’s blessing.

We want to believe in miracles, but it’s much harder for adults to do so than it is for children. But, adults need faith more than children.

Most children have loving adults to care for them, to hold them when they are afraid and to comfort them when they are ill.

Adults need the same attention but often have to reach out to God when they hurt because reaching out to other people becomes complicated.

Counting our blessings and receiving hugs from people who love us and watching shows that re-affirm our faith in Christmas miracles help get us through the rest of the year.