Giving Thanks

I was reminded for the umpteenth time that I am really blessed with my wonderful husband and beautiful children. We had our annual Family Thanksgiving Gathering at my sister in-law’s house and found the atmosphere to be very tense and uncomfortable. My mother (she has shared her day with us for the past 3 years) and her friend (he attended for the first time this year) felt totally out-of-place almost to the point of being unwelcome. This is so unusual for our family to emit this type of atmosphere because all of us have always been so accepting of anyone no matter what their station in life is.

My husband and daughters stepped in to make my mother’s friend feel a part of the family and celebration. Each of my girls stepped in without any prodding to bring happiness and fun to their younger cousins’ day. I have to thank my daughters for accepting that there are family issues present that their much younger cousins are reacting too and that nothing said or done is meant to be personal. Most of all thank you for not asking why and trying to attach blame.

My family jumped in on an invisible cue and made this day of thanks one to feel good about not one to regret.

By the way……

We started our day out by attending Mass with three of us participating with the combined church choir. Oh my! Thank you Mike for being the leader of the Sunday 6:00 choir. I have not witnessed such disorganization, starlet pouting, and more with a community choir than I did for this Mass. Of course, I’ve only been involved with the combined choir experience when Mike has been in charge! I’m hoping that the person who was in charge for this Mass allowed this chaos only because he is still very new to our parish and hasn’t learned the dynamics of each of the choirs and how to meld them together during holiday celebrations. Good luck for Christmas masses.