Gratitude

November 2018 - Issue 13

Having Trouble Opening Email? - View as Webpage

Gratitude - being thankful for all the good in our lives.

If you love where you live, you know what it's like to feel that warm rush of gratitude every time you walk through the door.

If you don't ....

Whether it's re-imagining your current space or moving on to a new situation, I'd be grateful for the opportunity to help.

Happy Thanksgiving!

817.903.1112

dbarrett@virginiacook.com

p.s. - please share Harmonious Home Adventures with friends and family (everyone deserves to love where they live!). Just hit the "forward" button on your email. They can sign up here:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday - and not just because it ushers in the "main" holiday season - Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus (for the rest of us - any Seinfeld fans out there?), Solstice, or whatever else one might celebrate at the end of the year.

It's About People

I love Thanksgiving because it's about people.

Without the pressure of gift-giving and receiving, without a focus on a particular event, like a birthday or an anniversary, without a "reason" except just the joy of being together, sharing time and a meal.

Okay, It's the Food, Too

I've got to admit that turkey, dressing, and coconut creme pie are pretty high up on the list of reasons that I love Thanksgiving.

But it's not just the food. It's the chance to set a beautiful table, to welcome people that you care about into your home (or be welcomed into theirs) and to acknowledge that, while our world has many problems, it holds many blessings.

Non-Traditional Thanksgiving Celebration

You don't have to do Thanksgiving any particular way.

It doesn't require a turkey or pumpkin pie or any particular food. I suppose it doesn't require food, at all, except that gratitude seems so much easier to feel in the presence of food.

When you consider the bottom level of the hierarchy of needs - those things without which we simply can't survive - food is right there along with water and shelter from the elements.

But we're talking about Thanksgiving here.

If the goal is to be consciously thankful for the good things in your life, it's logical to celebrate by eating something that doesn't just satisfy the basic nutritional requirements.

You want to indulge - to mark the occasion with food that doesn't just sustain life but that satisfies the senses. If sharing a pizza at a sidewalk cafe is your idea of gastronomical paradise, then go for it!

The point is to do something that sparks a feeling of gratitude and to take the time to notice it, to experience it.

For me, the process of the meal - cooking (or reheating what others have so brilliantly cooked), dressing the table, indulging in the elegance of the occasion - is a big part of expressing gratitude for the people I share the day with.

After all, it's not just any meal. But perhaps we should try to make all of our meals throughout the year just a bit more like Thanksgiving - times to be consciously grateful for the good in our lives.

Here's hoping that your Thanksgiving is everything you want it to be - and that one reason for your gratitude is that you

Love Where You Live!