And Christmas too. It's fine with me regardless of whether or not it's based on historical fiction. Each day is what I make of it, and Thanksgiving is a day I use set aside for mindfullness.

As an athiest I have no God to be thankfull to. Nevertheless there's this holday on my calendar and I have the day off and my kids and their wives and girlfriends expect to come to dinner and eat the delicious, utterly unhealthy, high-fat food I spend the day preparing. I try to be mindful all day long. I try to keep my mind free of thoughts of what I did at work the earlier in the week or how tight funds might be between Christmas and the tax-refund check. I try very hard to be present in the moment. Harder than on other days. I really should try hard every day, but I don't.

Somebody else started Thanksgiving and many others have kept it alive for all sorts of reasons. I don't care. In my home it belongs to me and my family. It is what we make it.

This has to be a first. I agree with you completely.

. . . but otherwise, I fully agree. I see many of these festivals as positive cultural markers, useful late-fall and high-winter celebrations of generosity, good friends, and, yes, food, drink, and gift. Civilization has always thrived on such wares, and I'll partake of them gladly.

I'll happily raise a glass (or two) of spiced and spiked eggnog to that!

How one chooses to celebrate any holiday is a personal choice. It's our God given right. Oh wait, you don't belive in......

Just kidding BT. Happy Thanksgiving. Eat, Drink and be Mindful.

I detest eggnog (and there is that lactose intolerance thing!)

No problem. We were in Sonoma recently (just outside of Healdsburg) and brought back some splendid Zins. I know the cognoscenti are pitching Pinot Noir with turkey this year, but we're Zin lovers and that's what's with dinner.

Right after I finish the nog. :)

I have heard zinfindel recommended with holiday feasts, too, actually.

I'm going to miss my grandmothers terribly when they pass on to the great whatever, but when they're gone, the rest of the family will finally be able to do what we all do in the privacy of our homes: enjoy a few belts! It's crazy. Almost everybody in my family drinks privately, but we can't when we come together for family holidays because the older generation is decidedly anti-booze. It's pretty silly, actually. We have our big dinner and lay around for a few hours, then the cousins, including myself, sneak out of the house and down to whatever pub happens to be open so we can enjoy the holiday in our own way.

I used to love eggnog, but lost my taste for it in early adulthood, about the time that I started developing lactose intolerance -- a connection perhaps?

Personally, while I am not a wine snob by any means, I usually prefer Zins to Pinot Noirs. To my palate, only really high-end Pinot Noirs are that good -- the ones in my usual price range are not that hot.

Have not picked our Thanksgiving wine yet, but I an guessing it will be a Zin. I am thinking a Cline Ancient Vines Zin. We don't have the greatest selection here on this little island.

Dry Thanksgiving is just wrong!

When we (rarely) have the holiday at my parents' home, there is no alcohol either -- and only my sister and I (and our spouses) drink. Usually, I ask my sister to pick up a couple of good bottles of Walla Walla wines (that is where she lives) and we retire to the bedroom for a glass or two.

Of course we also get the vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner too -- which I don't mind as I am mostly vegetarian anyway (I do eat fish and poultry and very seldom other meat), but it really does not seem like Thanksgiving to me. Ironically, perhaps, my wife and daughter always LIKE to go to my parents for Thanksgiving -- I am the one making excuses not to.

I do get a wee bit envious of all those who have family a drive or a short plane-ride away. With parents almost exactly halfway across the world, and my only brother across the oceans in London, though this day is usually spent in the company of very dear friends, I still cannot help but feel a slight twinge.....

But good friends are an immense blessing in themselves. And the fates willing, both my brother and me will be able to visit our parents this Christmas, so I promise not to feel too sad on Thursday.

Baldy Tony,

The very act of being mindful is really the to being nearer to God there is. Not a God that sits in the clouds and smites sinners with lightning bolts; not the God that lays out perfectly understandable, hard and fast rules for humans to follow or perish for eternity; not the God that will come once a humanity-ruining cataclysm occurs.

Just the real god that is mysterious, unknowable by the intellect, but which welcomes us to reside within by becoming mindful. A very humble and liberating thing.

I'm glad to know there are atheists like you.

[Just the real god that is mysterious, unknowable by the intellect, but which welcomes us to reside within by becoming mindful. A very humble and liberating thing.]

Where do you get the notion of this kind of god anyway?

By way of faith (which, really, is just a form of intuition). Not to mention the myriad religious texts outside the Abrahamic faiths which posit metaphysical constructs without positing anthropomorphized constructs like personal deities.

thelyamhound:

By way of faith (which, really, is just a form of intuition). Not to mention the myriad religious texts outside the Abrahamic faiths which posit metaphysical constructs without positing anthropomorphized constructs like personal deities.

I prefer a bit of evidence.