Happy Thanksgiving!

By Sean McVeigh

Thanksgiving is easily my favorite holiday. It’s got all the good stuff (and good stuffing). But more importantly, it lacks all the downsides of other holidays. Try as they might, our corporate overlords still haven’t found a way to successfully commercialize Thanksgiving. Since there is no gift giving, there are no commercials bombarding you constantly with stuff to buy. There aren’t even really any good Thanksgiving movies. As Kevin Boyle loved to talk about around this time of year, King Kong used to be a Thanksgiving TV staple. How festive. In a few days, an entire radio station will flip to Christmas music — and that’s all we’ll hear for the next month. Thanksgiving, though … I can’t even think of a single Thanksgiving song. It’s glorious.

Thanksgiving is also above politics — despite what your crazy uncle or combative aunt (you know who you are) might say at the dinner table. Those pilgrims weren’t Democrats or Republicans — they were just Americans. Well, technically, they were British, but they were in America, and that’s what we’re still celebrating: the simple, providential gift of being right here.

Best of all, the leftovers Thanksgiving is a purely family-focused holiday. Even if it’s not your literal “family,” you will still be with your inner circle, your people. The going out and partying happens the night before.

Every year at my family’s Thanksgiving dinner, we keep the stereotypical tradition of writing down something we’re thankful for. So let me get ahead of the game and list a few things now.

For starters, I’m thankful for my beautiful wife, and thankful that we’ll be welcoming a baby girl into our family in January. Speaking of family, I’m thankful for my entire family — they’re not just relatives, they’re also the best of friends. And speaking of friends, I’m very thankful for mine, old and new — who, now that I think about it, feel more like family. And, of course, I’m thankful for Rockaway. There’s nowhere else like it, and it’s a blessing to live here.

William F. Buckley Jr. was fond of saying: “Expressio unius est exclusio alterius,” which translates to “the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another.” Basically, you’re never able to name everything or everyone you should. There are so many more things I’m thankful for, but we’ll leave it there for now.

Before we wrap up, I’ve been thinking a lot about something I heard the other day, and Thanksgiving feels like the perfect time to explore it a bit. So bear with me.

In life, we are always so concerned about the “next step.” Before you even start high school, people ask you about college. Before you start college, they ask what you want to do with your life — as if an 18-year-old is going to know the answer to that. Then you graduate, and the questions shift to when you’re getting married. As soon as you’re engaged, it’s “How many kids are you going to have?” Before you even have your first kid, it’s “When are you buying a house?” Buy a house? I’m just happy I don’t have to pay for Thanksgiving dinner. And so on, and so on.

We never allow ourselves to live in the moment. There are always forces — inside and outside — pushing us toward the next thing, almost instinctively. There’s hardly any time to sit back and enjoy what we have today, not what we’re getting tomorrow. But in reality, there are no rules. There’s no “correct” path to take. To each their own.

Thanksgiving is the perfect time to take a step back and really appreciate the blessings in your life. There will be plenty of time for everything else. This Thursday let’s focus on the good stuff — let’s have a little gratitude for all we’ve got.

Before we know it, Christmas music will be in the air, and we’ll be panic-buying last-minute gifts. The holiday season is always hectic, and it all kicks off in a few days. But until then, let’s just enjoy the moment.

Happy Thanksgiving!