This Thanksgiving we should all try a little harder...

I will try not to be depressing...okay not TOO depressing with my post. But this is going to be a really difficult Thanksgiving for me. I lost my Dad on November 1st of this year, and since we have always spent Thanksgiving with him I feel a little lost this time around.

I always went to his house and cooked a bunch of food for Dad, the Jr. and myself. Sometimes the Mr. would tag along, and sometimes he was with his family. And before the Jr. came along it was just me and my Dad eating too much and watching football. The point is Thanksgiving was our holiday. And this year I don't have that anymore. And it sucks real bad.

I have been invited to many, many places this year. I have been told that I shouldn't be alone. I just don't want to spend Thanksgiving with anyone else's Dad. I feel I would be better off on my own drinking wine and watching television in my own living room than watching other happy families with their inside jokes and traditions and feeling like an outsider all day.

The Mr. and I are going to the cemetary in the morning then we will come home and I will break open the boxes of wine and pull out the appetizer dinner I have planned. I knew I wasn't going to feel like going all out with dinner, and since the Jr. is going with other relatives I didn't think we needed all of that anyway. I am pre-posting this, but I'm relatively sure that I will still only be interested in the booze by time actual Thanksgiving comes around, though I may be coerced into a handful of olives and some funky cheeses I have picked out.

There will still be too much food. There will still be football. There will still be cold weather and phone calls to distant relatives. But I can't imagine any of it ever being the same again. I love my father very much and on this day more than any other I think the loss of one of the most important people in my life is going to cut deep.

So on Thanksgiving, when you are sitting around your tables counting your blessings, I beg you to count each and every person sitting there with you. Be thankful for your family. If you still have your parents, one or both of them, hug them and tell them you love them. If they are far away please call them and talk to them. If you have lost one or both of them, ask the person nearest you to hug you for me. If the loss is recent ask for two or three and a kiss on each cheek from me too.

We take so many things in our lives for granted. Even if it is only once a year we should all try a little harder to be thankful for what we do have before it's gone and we never took the chance to appreciate it.

XoXoXo
Dakota Rebel