Gratitude: 2014 Edition

Gratitude, like anything else, is a habit. I have a picture that I see every day when I'm getting up; it says, "Begin each day with a grateful heart." We also have a family ritual at dinner each night, where we go around the table and explain what we're thankful for. We've done this since Maggie was a tiny toddler, and we never forget to do it. It's often my favorite part of the day. Sometimes, it's little things, like minecraft or beer or weekends. But oftentimes, there's some profound thanks: for family and a home and love. For random acts of kindness and for dinners and their makers. For schools and books and brains that work well. For God and farms and the gift to choose. For parents and children and grandparents and friends. All of these have had a place at our table over the last few months. It's hard to keep track, and I forget many of them. That's the way life goes, I guess!

But here's the best part: it's never difficult for me to share something for which I'm grateful, when I'm sitting at our cozy little table and my beautiful children have their eyes on me, and my husband is smiling at me across the way. They make gratitude - even on the crappiest of days, when I barely got out of bed or had a lot of pain or learned some news I didn't want to know - they make it easy on me. And so do all the people in my life who offer a helping hand or a loving heart or a sympathetic ear. My well of gratitude doesn't run dry. And I'm grateful for that, too!!

And so, today, on this holiday in which we gather together with people we love and consider that for which we are most thankful, I wish you all the ease that I find in sharing my own gratitudes - small and large. In this imperfect, wonderful, terrible, amazing world, I hope you and yours will be able to look within and see just a few of those many, many things that make your lives extraordinary.  There is so much to be thankful for, and I'm proud to say I work hard each day to find them.  The more you do it, the easier it becomes. Let's make every day a day of thanksgiving (but maybe not with all the calories!). Wouldn't all of our lives be richer if we did? 

Thank you all for making gratitude a treasured and easy part of my life. I'm profoundly grateful to have found a community that cares about my life.