Grateful

It is 6 am on the day after Thanksgiving, 2015.  My eyes popped open and after realizing that I’m not passing my wake up/get up rule (if I wake up and I’m not sleeping again in 15 minutes—it’s time to get up), I reluctantly throw back the covers, get out of bed and shuffle to the kitchen.  Awaiting me is a delicious smelling pot of coffee left for me by my wonderful daughter.  She’s at work, but thought about her mom.  I am nothing without my morning coffee.

As I sipped the steaming hot cup of Joe, I thought about the wonderful Thanksgiving day we’d had.  We are in the process of building new traditions.  My daughter-in-law and 2 granddaughters came for dinner.  We ate, played board games, watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. 

Before we ate, I said the Thanksgiving prayer.  My prayer was a thank you to the Creator for helping our family get through another holiday without Ted and Lateef—a thank you that we are all better this Thanksgiving than we were last Thanksgiving—a prayer that we continue to find the strength and grace to move forward—a prayer for the hungry, homeless and sad on this day and every day of the year—a prayer that each one of us find a way to help others because in doing so, we would continue the healing process.

My thoughts now move onto the day after Thanksgiving—today.  Many years ago,  when we lived in Northern California, Rashida and I would get up at “0 dark thirty” to join other moms (mostly moms) to stand in line at Mervyn’s for the chance to get a free Nerf football.  Yes, back in the late ‘80s, there were no deep discounts, maybe only one or two stores open on Thanksgiving day.  There was no chance that anyone would get trampled or killed at WalMart because not only was Walmart not in California yet, there were no sales at Kmart (the big discounter then) that would spawn a desperation so great that it could take someone’s life!  Back in those days in our neck of the woods, Thrifty was the only store open on Thanksgiving day aside from 7-11 type stores.  Normal folk were appalled at this and everyone would shake their head at the injustice of Thrifty’s employees having to leave their family to go to work.  All stores were open on the day after Thanksgiving but that day had not become "Black Friday" yet.  It was still "the day after Thanksgiving" and, sure, there were sales but nothing like today.  

So we were just a hundred or so, sleepy, tired moms who wanted to get into the holiday spirit by getting up at 4:30 in the morning and standing on line with their early morning coffee, talking and laughing with perfect strangers.  I loved that.  I’m harking back to a more simple time. I don’t love today’s version of the day after Thanksgiving--Black Friday!

Somehow I got the newspaper delivered to my porch yesterday.  I did not order it—Hmmm.  The picture attached to this post shows the size of the news (on the left) versus the size of the sales (on the right).  I’m not going to look at the sales because as far as I’m concerned, I have everything I need and I don’t need retailers to encourage me to need anything else.

I am blessed to have health, strength, the love and support of friends and family, a roof over my head, food to eat, and memories that put a smile on my face.  What else could I possibly need?

Happy holidays…